rlKa !\oi\ -"M’Mfl*‘*'‘I'',' ; »/»• v&m'uS] 

l] *•. j jIE *•• i.<t i 'M/W m*i ,>j in i wUT4$w«i(» ,‘t ' 

Jr<tS mv^‘"**'* •' tffir'' 1 ifiTtii'ri M> : -tlnnrrT 

JM i rJU/n>^ li HIk’f fWhWllHUU ‘vi-Hi-i *T H 

Wi W/ ®ffl* WtfP 1 **•* j 1 W-WW 4J|v^a r vi,*i’rfi!4|J if [*4JK^Uulfrif 


ftftl 


UrvV 


iim 




•, • f V i I'rii i W^?nHiSsSKJ5S • 3*» 
• rfl S#' • J * ’ 1 '; I Jh\ sicfz; • i.) i fa*>< t W-W* 1 




»» 




■UW ,n ,v . 

.m\»’ V 

:r'; 

kf*4 iv v(l) 


^J»,£ » r- 

ir.iW * 

»«vniH 

.• i»• • i t * • \ 


£tfR I 
; J> 


• tftA’j;■'!!{*! *‘!}f»Uv *?M • pBRrahKf 

/ • ' *» * 1 < " '.v HH' 1 It 


k-f > >{fM ♦ 


<••« ft/‘* 




,,'.b. »•*• ‘'JUT; ’ ; J t; ; ft i„;»,...:H*»* • -i ! *ft*> 

1 

7,j»t • * J ’ 1 ■ ' ’ J rfj( J ( f} ’ f 1 ,•, i j ,1'... : hr > ‘ i.»» J g-t/> 1 ‘ • * H"' ftHl 


MlW. liW 
*i»< > !.*< r 


■ ••' ■ ;f;‘ -j‘’ f *{,if, ?,. w 1/♦»i»>t.«i'« t k i" 1 i v i 

*i’i»{Ji‘il|• *i>f- 1 ?**r*• 1 >r *-'*• f **'*P' ,f ' •• » 

; )n h [ i i : i. Ah»v .Ou»»w '>»■ « m ft ft® *»»lj, 

J -(i : U < '/jjjl',,! 4 ! j|j »-f J * M A ■•["'■'■* 1 " * y* r ’ v 

&*•■ s&MmLrotei® 


FJ/-'iti" iljiri*'!'* 


titli 


wn 


! 

is 




. *<*-. ji »<i 


., »4 ft ♦ \ iM’■pi k ■ tr ’ 1 J * f M f rm■»'* 11 
miitS»i^»*'Ujhnv i 

. 

Hi 












































































Class _H T 'I 5 1 

Book__ Or 6 

Copyright N?_ 



COMRIGilT DEPOSIT. 
























































































. 

























































- 













































































































































































































»il|1H | 














































































. 
































































































































































Second thousand, with notes, 12 mo, price $1.50. 


THE MINISTRY OF HEALING; 

Or, Miracles of Cure in all Ages. 

By Pastor A. J. Gordon. 


Contents ; 


The Question and its Bearings. 
The Testimony of Scripture. 
The Testimony of Reason. 

The Testimony of the Church. 
The Testimony of Theologians. 
The Testimony of Missions. 


The Testimony of the Adversary. 
The Testimony of Experience. 
The Testimony of the Healed. 

The Verdict of Candor. 

The Verdict of Caution. 

The Conclusion. 


“ A work which has deeply interested me by its literary, logical and more 
than all by its spiritual power. Its reading has confirmed me in a resolution 
made years ago, never to attack even if I cannnot defend the views which Dr. 
Gordon, in common with Prof. Christlieb and others, holds of modern miracles. 
I am convinced that they have the historical argument strongly on their side.” 
— Rev. Joseph Cooke. 


“This is a remarkable book, and it will be read with much interest by many 
who do not agree with many of the opinions expressed in it. It is written in 
a spirit of candor and fairness, with a clear style, and abounds in illustrations 
and opinions which the author has collected with much industry from many 
sources .”—London Daily Review. 


“ I have long held and as occasion has offered maintained the views advoca¬ 
ted in ‘ The Ministry 0/Healing ’ and it rejoices my heart to find them so ably 
and powerfully expounded.” — Dr. S. H. Kellogg, Professor of Theology hi 
the Alleghany Theological Seminary. 

“ Whatever may be the views of readers they must be interested by the re¬ 
markable facts here collected. One or two narratives given had better have 
been omitted for the shke of the argument but the general eflect is powferful.” 
C. H. Spurgeon. 


Boston: HOWARD GANNETT, Tremont Temple. 








/ 


THE 


TWO FOLD LIFE 


OR, 


J2- 

J6>6 7 


CHRIST’S WORK FOR US AND CHRIST’S 
WORK IN US. 



A. J. GORDON, 


Author of “ In Christ,” “ Grace and Glory,” “The Ministry 
of Healing,” etc. 



BOSTON: 
HOWARD GANNETT. 

i8s 3 . 







Copyright, 1883, 

By Howard Gannett. 



C. M. A. Twitchell & Co., 43 Kilby Street. 
PRINTERS. ' 



MV£ ftO 




CONTENTS. 


Page. 

I. LIFE AND LIFE MORE ABUNDANT, . . 5 

II. REGENERATION AND RENEWAL, . .19 

III. CONVERSION AND CONSECRATION, . . 41 

IV. SALVATION AND SEALING, .... 65 

V. SONSHIP AND COMMUNION, .... 97 

VI. RIGHTEOUSNESS AND HOLINESS, . .127 

VII. PEACE WITH GOD AND THE PEACE 

OF GOD, .163 

VIII. POWER FOR SONSHIP AND POWER 

FOR SERVICE, .183 

IX. ACCESS AND SEPARATION, . . . .213 


X. IDEAL AND ATTAINMENT, 


233 





































* 










f 




I. 


LIFE AND LIFE MORE ABUNDANT. 


“The work of Jesus in the world is two-fold. It is 
a work accomplished for us , destined to effect reconcilia¬ 
tion between God and man; it is a work accomplished 
in us, with the object of effecting our sanctification. By 
the one, a right relation is established between God and 
us; by the other is the fruit of the re-established order. 
By the former the condemned sinner is received into 
the state of grace: by the latter the pardoned sinner is 
associated with the life of God. . . How many ex¬ 

press themselves as if when forgiveness, with the peace 
which it procures has been once obtained, all is finished, 
and the work of salvation complete. They seem to 
have no suspicion that salvation consists in the health 
of the soul, and that the health of the soul consists in 
holiness. Forgiveness is not the re-establishment of 
health, it is but the crisis of convalescence. If God 
thinks fit to declare the sinner righteous, it is in order 
that He may by that means restore him to holiness.”— 
Godet, 


I. 


LIFE AND LIFE MORE ABUNDANT. 

INTRODUCTORY. 

I T is an unhappy circumstance that so many 
Christians look upon the salvation of the soul 
as the goal rather than as the starting point of faith. 
We do not'forget indeed that the Scripture uses 
the expression “receiving the end of your faith , 
even the salvation of your souls.” But the con¬ 
nection clearly shows that it is the further end, 
not the nearer end which is here referred to, the 
perfecting and glorifying of the soul at the reve¬ 
lation of Jesus Christ, not its justification when 
it believes on Christ. “ He that believeth on the 
Son hath eternal life” — has it in germ and prin¬ 
ciple. But Christ says, “ I am come that they 
might have life, and that they might have it 
more abundantly .” * Christ for us, appropriated 
by faith is the source of life ; Christ within us 


* John io: io. 



10 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


$ 




through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is the 
source of more abundant life; the one fact secures 
our salvation • the other enables us to glorify God in 
the salvation of others. How distinctly these two 
stages of spiritual life are set forth in our Lord’s 
discourse about the water of life ! The first effect 
upon the believer of drinking this water is, “ he 
shall never thirst: but the water that I shall give 
him shall be in him a well of water springing up 
into everlasting life.” * That is, the soul receives 
salvation, and the perennial joy and peace which 
accompany salvation. But the second stage is 
this : “ He that believeth on me, as the Scripture 

hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living 
water. But this spake he of the Spirit which they 
that believe on him should receive .” f Here is the 
divine life going out in service and testimony 
and blessing through the Holy Ghost. 

It is the last stage, the fullness and consequent 
outgiving of the influences of the Spirit, which 
needs to be especially sought in these days by 
Christians. There are so many instances of ar¬ 
rested development in the church ; believers who 
have settled into a condition of confirmed infancy, 


* John 4: 14. 


t John 7: 38, 39. 






LIFE AND LIFE MORE ABUNDANT. 


II 


and whose testimony always begins back with 
conversion, and hovers around that event, like the 
talk of children who are perpetually telling how 
old they are. Now even our conversion, blessed 
event as it is, may be one of those things that are 
behind, which we are to forget in the pursuit of 
higher things. Is there not a deep significance in 
that expression of two-fold union which our Lord 
so often uses, “Ye in me and I in you”? The 
branch that is in the vine has its position ; but 
only as the vine is in it, constantly penetrating it 
with its sap and substance, does it have power for 
fruitfulness. “ If any man be hi Christ he is a 
new creature,” he is regenerated, he is justified. 
But what, let us inquire, can the apostle’s words 
mean when in referring to such regenerated ones 
he says, “ My little children, of whom I travail in 
birth again until Christ be formed in you ” ? * This 
later travail — these second birth-pangs for those 
who had already been born of the Spirit — what 
can they signify ? Is it metaphor or is it a hint 
of some deeper work of divine renewing for those 
who having begun in the Spirit are in danger of 
seeking to be made perfect in the flesh ? 


* Gal. 4: 19. 




12 


the two-fold life . 


Now the Scriptures seem to teach that there is 
a second stage in spiritual development, distinct 
and separate from conversion ; sometimes widely 
separated in time from it, and sometimes almost 
contemporaneous with it a stage to which we 
rise by a special renewal of the Holy Ghost, and 
not merely by the process of gradual growth. We 
shall be especially careful not to dogmatize here. 
But there is a transaction described in the New 
Testament by the terms the gift of the Holy 
Ghost, the sealing of the Spirit, the anointing of 
the Holy Spirit, and the like. The allusions to it 
in the Acts and in the Epistles mark it unmistak¬ 
ably as something different from conversion. What 
is this experience? We take our place as learn¬ 
ers, before the Scriptures and before the biogra¬ 
phies of holy men, and seek an answer to this 

inquiry. 

We come to this study under two impulses. 
The one has been derived from a fresh study of 
the Acts of the Apostles, and from the conviction 
begotten by such study that there is more light to 
break out of that book than we have yet impris¬ 
oned in our creeds ; the other has been derived 
from new experience in revival work, and from the 





LIFE AND LIFE MORE ABUNDANT. 


13 


observation of what great things the Spirit of God 
can still accomplish when he falls upon believers 
and fills them with his power. 

Here is the lesson, above all others, which this 
generation needs to learn. Do we mourn that 
ours is a materialistic age ? Would that it were 
only so on the scientific and rationalistic side. 
But what we have most reason to fear is that sub¬ 
tle materialism which is creeping into our church 
life and methods. How little dependence is there 
on supernatural power as all sufficient for our 
work! How much we are coming to lean on mere 
human agencies!—upon art and architecture, 
upon music and rhetoric and social attraction ! If 
we would draw the people to church that we may 
win them to Christ, the first question with scores 
of Christians nowadays is, what new turn can be 
given to the kaleidoscope of entertainment ? 
What new stop can we insert in our organ, and 
what richer and more exquisite strain can we 
reach by our quartette? What fresh novelty in 
the way of social attraction can we introduce ; or 
what new corruscation can be let off from the pul¬ 
pit to dazzle and captivate the people ? Oh for a 
faith to abandon utterly these devices of natural- 



14 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


ism, and to throw the church without reserve 
upon the power of the supernatural ! Is there not 
some higher degree in the Holy Spirit’s tuition 
into which we can graduate our young ministers, 
instead of sending them to a German university 
for their last touches of theological culture ? Is 
there not some reserved power yet treasured up 
in the church which is the Body of Christ, some 
unknown or neglected spiritual force which we 
can lay hold of, and so get courage to fling away 
forever these frivolous expedients on which we 
have so much relied for carrying on the Lord’s 
work ? The enduement of the Spirit for power, 
for service, for testimony, for success — this in 
brief is the subject of this book. 

That we might set the matter most effectively 
before our readers, we have adopted the following 
method : 

i. First, we have considered the subject under 
the head of “ the two-fold life,” in order to mark 
clearly the distinctions between the first and the 
second stages of spiritual experience. For one of 
the most serious mistakes touching the whole 
matter, has been the habit of confounding what 
belongs to sanctification with what really belongs 



LIFE AA r D LIFE MORE ABUNDANT. 


15 


to justification, and vice versa. It is very com¬ 
mon, for example, to find writers on the Higher 
Christian life urging us to become “completely 
crucified with Christ,” and “ utterly dead to sin.” 
But these are not experiences or attainments; 
they are fundamental facts. The Revised New 
Testament throws a flood of light on this point, by 
putting all allusions to the believer s death with 
Christ, in the past definite tense where they be¬ 
long. It is simply a fact that when Christ our 
substitute died on the cross for us, we died virtu¬ 
ally or judicially through him, to the law and to 
sin. As saith the Scripture, “ If One died for all, 
then all died.” * It is this past definite transac¬ 
tion which forms the basis of our acceptance with 
God. “ He that hath died is justified from sin.” f 
Here is something that has to do directly with our 
justification by faith, and not with our sanctifica¬ 
tion by the Spirit. 

On the other hand, the error has sometimes 
been committed of insisting on the higher spirit¬ 
ual experiences as an evidence of conversion; the 
witness of the Spirit and the sealing of the Spirit 
being demanded as prerequisite to baptism and 


* 2 Cor. s: 14. 
f Rom. 6:7; Rev. Ver. 





16 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


admission to the church. A glance at the Acts of 
the Apostles shows us that it was not so in the 
beginning. The record of the first admissions to 
the church is very simple. “ Then they that gladly 
received the word were baptized.” A consent of 
the heart to Christ and to his gospel was the soli¬ 
tary condition of initiation into the church, and 
the deeper operations of the Holy Ghost followed 
in their order. 

In what we have written we have given far 
larger space to the second stage of the two-fold 
life, but we have brought it into constant contrast 
with the first, in order to emphasize these distinc¬ 
tions and set them clearly before the mind. 

2. We have endeavored to throw all possible 
light on this subject from the records of Christian 
experience. It is evident, if we stop to think of 
the matter, that the Spirit must be studied in his 
operations. The fault of most treatises on the 
third Person of the Trinity is that they are too 
abstract. A Spirit can only be made known to us 
by his outward acts and manifestations. Our 
Lord hints this in his simile of the wind blowing 
where it listeth. We can see the swaying of the 
trees and the heaving of the waters, but we can- 



LIFE AND LIFE MORE ABUNDANT. 


*7 


not discern the wind that caused these motions. 
So we can see the power of the Holy Ghost in the 
lives of Christians, in conversions and revivals; 
in the acts of believers and in the triumphs of the 
church ; but we cannot recognize him by himself, 
since he is invisible and immaterial. Why is it 
that the Acts of the Apostles gives us so much 
knowledge of the Holy Ghost ? Because it is the 
life of the Spirit seen in the words and deeds of 
the body of believers : it is the Invisible made 
visible in working and conduct and testimony. 
Indeed the Acts of the Apostles might be rightly 
named the Acts of the Holy Spirit. As the gos¬ 
pels are a record “of all that Jesus began both to 
do and teach until the day in which he was taken 
up,” so the Acts are the record of all that the 
Holy Spirit began both to do and teach after that 
he came down and inhabited the body of the 
faithful. And if we learn so much from these 
first beginnings of his working, is there not much 
to learn from his continuings in the subsequent 
history of the church ? 

We judge so ; and hence we have called to our 
aid the lives of the saints of all the Christian 
ages. Having drawn our scheme of the doctrine 



i8 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


of the Spirit from the Scriptures, we have sought 
to fill up the outline from the records of religious 
biography. For Christian experience, if it be 
true and divinely inspired, is but the Bible transla¬ 
ted and printed in illuminated text, scripture “ writ 
large,” for the benefit of dim eyes that cannot 
read the fine print of doctrine. Let our readers 
judge for themselves of the significance of the 
spiritual transactions herein recorded. 

3. Finally, in all that we have written we have 
had chiefly in mind the help and quickening of 
Christian ministers and workers. No elaborate 
treatise has been attempted ; no exhaustive dis¬ 
cussion of the person and ministry of the Holy 
Spirit. Rather have we attempted an easy collo¬ 
quy with our readers, blending scripture exposition 
with religious incident, letting the voice of God be 
heard now in his inspired word, and now in the 
echoes which that word has awakened in Christian 
consciousness. And upon all, we have sought and 
do now seek, the illuminating and sanctifying and 
consecrating influences of the Holy Paraclete — 
that what in our discourse is true and according to 
the mind of God may be blessed to his people; 
and that whatever is amiss may be graciously for¬ 
given and overuled. 




II. 


RE GENERA TION AND RENE WAR. 


V“By regeneration we understand the. commencement 
of the life of God in the soul of man \Jthe beginning of 
that which had not an existence before: by renewal, the 
invigoration of that which has been begun; the susten- 
tation of a life already possessed. . . In the wash¬ 

ing of regeneration the new life commences. Having 
begun it needs to be supported and preserved. This is 
effected by the renewing of the Holy Ghost, the flowing 
into the soul through the supply of the Spirit of Jesus 
Christ of the varied gifts of the Divine Agent by whom 
the life itself was imparted at first. ,? — Thomas Binney. 


II. 


REGENERATION AND RENEWAL. 

R EGENERATION and Renewal are related 
to each other, as the planting of the tree 
is related to its growth. It is very necessary that 
at the outset we should have a clear conception of 
what regeneration is. In the manuals of theology 
we sometimes find it described as “ a change of 
nature.” But we must take respectful exception 
to this definition. For by nature must be meant, 
of course, human nature ; and by the expression 
“ change of nature,” it is implied that the natural 
heart can be so transformed and bettered, that it 
can bring forth the fruits of righteousness and 
true holiness. Against this presumption the Word 
of God enters its solemn and emphatic caveat — 
“ Because the carnal mind is enmity against God : 
for it is not subject to the law of God, neither 
indeed can he” * 

We hold that the true definition of regeneration 


Rom. 8: 7. 



22 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


is, that it is\“the communication of the Divine 
Nature to man by the operation of the Holy Spirit, 
through the YVord.^/ So writes the Apostle Peter: 

“ Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and 
precious promises ; that by these we might be 
partakers of the divine nature , having escaped the 
corruption that is in the world through lust.” * 
As Christ was made partaker of human nature by 
his incarnation, that so he might enter into truest 
fellowship with us, we are made partakers of the 
Divine Nature by regeneration, that we may enter 
into truest fellowship with God. That great say¬ 
ing of the Son of God which is so often repeated 
in the Gospel and Epistles of John, “He that * 
believeth on me hath eternal life,” can convey to 
us only this idea when rightly understood : The 
I eternal life is not our natural life prolonged into 
endless duration. It is the divine life imparted to 
us — the very life of very God communicated to 
the human soul, and bringing forth there its own 
proper fruity 

Seeing this point clearly, we can readily under¬ 
stand the process and method of spiritual growth — 
that it consists in the constant mortification of the 


* 2 Pet. i: 4. 





REGENERATION AND RENEWAL. 


23 


natural man, and the constant renewal of the spir¬ 
itual man. We can best illustrate this by using 
the figure of g raftin g, which the Scriptures sev¬ 
eral times employ. Here is a gnarly tree, which 
bears only sour and stunted fruit. From some 
rich and perfect stock a scion is brought, which is 
incorporated into a branch of this tree. Now, the 
husbandman’s efforts are directed, not to the cul¬ 
ture and improvement of the old stock, but to the 
development of the new. Instead of seeking to 
make the original branches better, he cuts them 
off, here and there, that the sap and vitality which 
they are wasting in the production of worthless 
fruit, may go to that which is approved and excel¬ 
lent. Here is the philosophy of spiritual culture : 
“ Put off the old man with his deeds ; ” “ the in¬ 
ward man is renewed day by day.” 

Believing that vigilant and serious attention to 
spiritual culture is now especially demanded, if we 
are to cope with the powerful enemies which con¬ 
front us, let us search for the secret of this divine 
renewal. 

“ Day by day ” our inward man is renewed. 
“Give us day by day our daily bread,” is the 
prayer which the Saviour taught us to utter. And 



24 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


yet he said, “ It is written that man shall not live 
by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth 
out of the mouth of God.” The bread of the 
Word is that which we must feed upon if we would 
enjoy a daily increase in the life of God. It is a 
trite admonition, but none the less true and vital. 
Divine growth must follow the development of the 
divine birth. If we were “ begotten by the Word 
of Truth,” we must be daily renewed from the 
same element. 

Too few really credit the power of the Word in 
building up holy character, and therefore too few 
make diligent experiment of the process. Can we 
think it possible that the food on our tables should 
be so transmuted in Nature’s laboratory that it 
should re-appear, now in the stalwart muscle of 
the blacksmith’s arm, and now in the fine texture 
of the poet’s brain ? And let it not seem incredi¬ 
ble that the Word of God, daily received and in¬ 
wardly assimilated, can re-appear in every kind of 
spiritual power and holy efficiency. Stephen” 
Grellet, waking up from his early sacramental 
training, saw the washerwomen one day at their 
tasks. They were washing linen. He says : “ I 

wondered to see what beating and pounding there 





REGENERA TION AND RENE WAL. 


25 


was upon it, and how beautifully white it came out 
of their hands. I was told I could not enter 
God’s kingdom until I underwent such an opera¬ 
tion ; that unless I was thus washed and made 
white, I could have no part in the dear Son of 
God. For weeks I was absorbed in the considera¬ 
tion of the subject — the washing of regeneration. 
I had never heard such things before, and I greatly 
wondered that, having been baptized with water, 
and having also received what they call the sacra¬ 
ment of confirmation, I should have to pass 
through such a purification.” Just as it was in 
"the beginning, we see, “ How shall ye believe if I 
tell you of heavenly things ? ” 

But by and by this mystery is solved, by being 
wrought out in a living personal experience, and 
the regeneration of the Spirit is followed by a long 
life of eager and humble feeding on the Spirit and 
the Word of God. And now appears a greater 
mystery. By a strange and subtile power the 
hearts of kings and emperors are made to open to 
this saintly preacher, while they listen entranced 
as he unfolds to them the mysteries of the king¬ 
dom of heaven, and pleads the claims of Divine 
Love. Popes and cardinals, priests and nuns, give 



26 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


ear; their hearts melt, and their eyes flow with 
tears, while they confess that they never heard it 
on this wise before. Here is a life which main¬ 
tained such communion with God that there was 
far more of heaven than of earth in it. Let us 
see in it a living testimony of what the Holy 
Spirit and the Holy Word can effect when wrought 
into living Christian character. 

' f 

We are touching a most vital point now. j Phy¬ 
siology shows us how inevitably the food on which 
one subsists determines the texture of his flesh .) 
Can the daily newspaper, the light romance, and 
the secular magazine, build up the fibre and tissue 
of a true spiritual character ? We are not put¬ 
ting any surly prohibition on these things ; but 
when we think of the place which they hold in 
modern society, and with how many Christians 
they constitute the larger share of the daily read¬ 
ing, there is suggested a very serious theme for 
reflection. As the solemn necessity is laid upon 
the sinner of choosing between Christ and the 
world, so is the choice pressed upon the Christian 
between the Bible and literature — that is, the 
choice as to which shall hold the supreme place. 
“Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after 



REGENERATION AND RENEWAL. 


27 


righteousness.” Ah! how quickly a day’s bodily 
languor and want of appetite is noted and attend¬ 
ed to. But how many days have we known in 
which there has been no relish for the Word of 
God, no deep, inward craving after that meat 
which the world knows not of. And have we been 
so alarmed at this symptom that we have made 

haste at once to seek its cure ? 

• 

The fact of the Scriptures furnishing nutriment 
and upbuilding to the soul, is the most real expe¬ 
rience of which we have knowledge. None of us, 
“by tcikuig thought , can add one cubit unto his 
stature.” But how many, by taking in God’s 
great thoughts, feeding on them and inwardly 
digesting them, have added vastly to their spirit¬ 
ual stature. We have noticed especially, in the 
lives of Christians, how some long-neglected hut 
freshly-revived truth has marvelously quickened ^ 
and built up the soul. Its newness has created a 
strong relish in the believer, and so imparted a 
mighty impulse to his spiritual growth. How 
true this has been of such doctrines as those of 
“ Justification by Faith,” “ The Witness of the * 
Spirit,” and the “ Coming of the Lord.” The 
revival of these doctrines has constituted distinct 



28 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


eras of reformation in the Church, but previously, 
also, marked eras of renewal in the individual 
soul. We may take the last mentioned as the one 
j most recently revived. The biographer of Hewit- 
son says of him : “ He not only believed in the 

speedy appearing, but loved it, waited for it, 
watched for it. So mighty a motive power did it 
become that he ever used to speak of it afterward 
*•*'* as bringing with it a kind of second conversion 
Yes ; and how many Christians of our day know 
what this means. Such is the vivifying power of 
truth ; so does it come in to repair the waste in 
our spiritual life, to build up new tissue, and to 
put new blood into our heavenly man. 

% The same may be said of prayer and meditation. 
They have mighty renewing power. They quicken 
our life, and multiply within us the joy of the 
Lord, which is our strength. 

In these days, when the closet has become so 
contracted and the Church so expanded; when 
Christians have learned to find their edification so 
largely in the public services, in the music, and art, 
and eloquence of the sanctuary, and so little in 
the still hour of communion, it is quite hard to 
believe that the greatest enjoyment is possible in 



REGENERATION AND RENEWAL . 


2 9 


solitude with God. We read of Columkill bidding 
farewell to his hermit’s cell and homely fare to 
take the honors and emoluments of the bishopric 
of Iona, yet exclaiming tearfully: “ Farewell, 

Arran of my heart! Paradise is with thee; the 
garden of God is within sound of thy bells.” And 
as we read this we say, forsooth, “This is monkish 
sentimentalism.” But what when we find sober 
Protestant saints like the one just quoted, Hewit- 
son, writing: “ Communion with Christ is the^ 

only source of satisfaction, the only source of last¬ 
ing joy. I have enjoyed more even this morning 
from beholding the loveliness of the glory of 
Christ, as revealed to me by the Spirit, than I 
have done from the world during the whole of my 
life.” Or, to rise to a still more incredible alti¬ 
tude, what if we listen to that mighty interceder 
with God, John Welch, of Scotland, crying in one 
of his seasons of rapt communion, “ O Lord, hold 
thy hand ; it is enough ; thy servant is a clay ves¬ 
sel, and can contain no more ? ” Surely, this is 
strange language to most of us. But if we turn 
to the Scriptures of our Lord, we may find a pos¬ 
sible key to such alleged experiences; for when 
we ask our Master why he has revealed such won- 



30 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


derful things concerning our union with him, 
and our share in the Father’s glory, he answers, 
“ These thi-ngs have I spoken unto you that my 
joy might remain in you, and that your joy might 
he full * And when we ask Him why he has 
given us this wonderful privilege of prayer in his 
name, he replies, “ Ask and ye shall receive, that 
your joy may he full.” f If, at best, we have been 
able to get only a half measure of this divine joy, 
let us not discredit those who have exclaimed, 
“My cup runneth over. Surely goodness and 
mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” 

We have spoken of daily renewals, and we are 
persuaded that no real growth and development 
in Christian life is possible without these. There 
is still another kind of renewing to which we 
would call attention. “ The times of refreshing 
from the presence of the Lordf which the Scrip¬ 
tures promise, hold out a very blessed and assur¬ 
ing hope. This expression, of course, has literal 
reference to the return of the Lord from glory, 
and his joyful reunion with his Church. But 
there are even now seasons of extraordinary com¬ 
munion with the Lord, when, through the Holy 


* John 15: n. 


t John 16: 24. 




REGENERA TIOiV AND RENEWAL. 


31 


Spirit, he is pleased to manifest himself to the 
soul in such unwonted power that they may be 
truly called “ times of refreshing.” We find 
records of these in the lives of almost all devoted 
saints. As nature has its annual as well as its 
diurnal renewals, when the sun returns in spring- 
tide blessing and quickening, so has grace its 
special times of revival. Then it is that the heav¬ 
enly Bridegroom visits the soul, by the Holy 
Ghost, speaking in tenderest accents : “ Rise up, 

my love, my fair one, and come away. For lo, the 
winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The 
flowers appear on the earth ; the time of the sing¬ 
ing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is 
heard in the land. The fig-tree putteth forth her 
green figs, and the vines with the tender grapes 
give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, 
and come away.” Ah ! how often have the poetic 
strains of this Song of Solomon been translated 
into the real prose of living, practical experience. 
The chill of winter has settled over the Church; 
instead ot melting penitence, the tears of other 
days have frozen into icicles, and are hanging 
about the sanctuary — cold and glittering formali¬ 
ties taking the place of that holy tenderness which 



32 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


pleads with God “with strong crying,” and warns 
men “ night and day with tears.” What servant 
of God has not had sorrowful experiences of this 
condition of things ? Then it is that pastors and 
• brethren should seek for a special refreshing from 
the Lord’s presence. The ordinary tenor of spir¬ 
itual life will not answer now. The power of God 
must be laid hold of — special power for special 
weakness and need. And “ blessed be the God 
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath 
begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resur¬ 
rection of Jesus Christ from the dead,” that he 
can renew what he has begotten, and restore the 
joy of his salvation to those who have backslidden 
into the joy of this world. Christmas Evans, the 
fervent Welsh preacher, has left us the record of a 
most gracious visitation of this kind : — 

“ I was weary of a cold heart toward Christ and his 
sacrifice and the work of his Spirit; of a cold heart in 
the pulpit, in secret prayer, and in the study. For fif- 
| teen years previously I had felt my heart burning with¬ 
in me, as if going to Emmaus with Jesus. On a day 
ever to be remembered by me, as I was going from 
Dolgelley to Machynlleth, and climbing up toward 
Cadair Idris, I considered it incumbent on me to pray, 



REGENERATION AND RENEWAL. 


33 


however hard I felt my heart, and however worldly the 
frame of my spirit was. Having began in the name of 
Jesus, I soon felt as it were the fetters loosening, and 
the old hardness softening, and, as I thought, the moun¬ 
tains of frost and snow dissolving and melting within 
me. This engendered confidence in my soul in the 
promise of the Holy Ghost. I felt my whole mind re¬ 
lieved from some great bondage ; tears flowed copious¬ 
ly, and I was constrained to cry out for the gracious 
visits of God, by restoring to my soul the joy of his 
salvation, and that he would visit the churches in Ang- 
lesea that were under my care. I embraced in my sup¬ 
plications all the churches of the saints, and nearly all 
the ministers of the principality by their names. This 
struggle lasted for three hours; it rose again and again, 
like one wave after another, or a high-flowing tide 
driven by a strong wind, until my nature became faint 
by weeping and crying. Thus I resigned myself to 
Christ, body and soul, gifts and labors, all my life — 
every day and every hour that remained for me; and 
all my cares I committed to Christ. The road was 
mountainous and lonely, and I was wholly alone, and 
suffered no interruption in my wrestling with God. 
From this time I was led to expect the goodness of 
God to the churches and to myself. . . . The result 
was, when I returned home the first thing that arrested 
my attention was that the Spirit was working also in 



34 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


the brethren in Anglesea, inducing in them a spirit of 
prayer, especially in two of the deacons, who were par¬ 
ticularly importunate that God would visit us in mercy, 
and render the Word of his grace effectual amongst us 
for the conversion of sinners.” # 

What is especially to be noticed in this experi¬ 
ence is its relation to the Church of God. When 
the ice was melted from his own soul, then he 
began to plead for all the saints and all the minis¬ 
ters. And, as afterward appears, at the same time 
that the Spirit fell on him it was falling on his 
brethren in distant places. So it is always. God 
never makes half a providence any more than man 
makes half a pair of shears. If he fits a preacher 
to declare his Word, he fits a hearer to receive 
that Word; if he moves one soul to cry “ What 
must I do ? ” he has always moved some other ser¬ 
vant of his to direct him what to do. Let us pon¬ 
der the story of Paul and Ananias, of Peter and 
Cornelius, of Philip and the eunuch, if we would 
observe the mystery of the Spirit — his twofold 
ministry, to preacher and to hearer, to counsellor 
and to inquirer. And noting this, we shall under¬ 
stand the intimate relationship between the season 


* Life and Sermons, p. 28. 




REGENERATION AND RENEWAL. 


35 


of renewal in the heart of the individual believer 
and the time of reviving in the Church. If two 
harp-strings are in perfect tune, you cannot smite 
the one without causing the other to vibrate ; and 
if one Christian is touched and agitated by the 
Spirit of God, think it not strange that all who 
are like-minded in the Church are moved by the 
same divine impulse. Not for ourselves, and that*; 
we may enjoy the holy luxury of communion with 
God, are we to seek for the times of refreshing. 

If so, doubtless we shall fail of them, for, even 
spiritual blessings we may ask and receive not, if 
we only ask that we may consume them upon 
ourselves. 

No biography to which we have been intro¬ 
duced seems to us more instructive on this point 
than that of David Brainerd. From time to time 
he sought and obtained the holiest intimacies 
with God, yet never for himself. Trace, line by 
line, the following remarkable passage from his 
diary: — 

“April 19, 1742. — I set apart this day for fasting 
and prayer to God for his grace; especially to prepare 
me for the work of the ministry, to give me divine aid 
and direction in my preparations for that great work, 



36 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


and in his own time to send me into his harvest. Ac¬ 
cordingly, in the morning I endeavored to plead for 
the Divine Presence for the day, and not without some 
life. In the forenoon I felt the power of intercession 
for precious, immortal souls, for the advancement of the 
kingdom of my dear Lord and Saviour in the world, 
and, withal, a most sweet resignation and even conso¬ 
lation and joy in the thought of suffering hardships, 
distresses, and even death itself, in the promotion of it; 
and had special enlargement in pleading for the enlight¬ 
ening and conversion of the poor heathen. In the af¬ 
ternoon God was with me of a truth. Oh, it was 
blessed company indeed! God enabled me so to 
agonize in prayer that I was quite wet with sweat, 
though in the shade and the cool wind. My soul was 
drawn out very much for the world; I grasped for mul¬ 
titudes of souls. I think I had more enlargement for sin¬ 
ners than for the children of God, though I felt as if / 
could spend my life in cries for both. I had great enjoy¬ 
ment in communion with my dear Saviour. I think I 
never in my life felt such an entire weanedness from 
this world, and so much resigned to God in everything. 
Oh that I may always live to and upon my blessed God! 
Amen, amen. M * 

Here, certainly, is something very high and 


* Memoir, p. 46. 





REGENERATION AND RENEWAL. 


37 


remote from ordinary experience — this praying 
one’s self into fellowship with Christ’s sufferings, 
and into partnership with his garden sweat. But 
we are writing now for those who wish to know 
concerning the highest attainments. Yet what we 
are especially emphasizing is the relation of these 
extraordinary experiences to the furtherance of 
the gospel and the salvation of souls. 

He who in thus interceding grasped not for 
some ecstatic vision or revelation of God, but “ for 
multitudes of souls,” gained what he sought; for 
marvellous power attended his preaching. There 
were days in which the Spirit of God fell upon 
those stolid, hard-hearted Indians with such dem¬ 
onstration that scores of them bowed before the 
preacher like 'grass before the mower’s scythe ; so 
that even the ambassador himself was astonished, 
and exclaimed, “ And there was no day like that 
before it or after it.” 

Brainerd had many seasons of this uncommon 
renewing of his spiritual life through prayer and 
fasting; and in summing them up, President 
Edwards records this noteworthy conclusion : 
“ Among all the many days he spent in secret 
prayer and fasting, of which he gives an account 



33 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


in his diary, there is scarcely an instance of one 
which was not either attended or soon followed with 
apparent success , and a remarkable blessing in spe¬ 
cial influences and consolations of God's Spirit , and 
very often before the day was ended." And we may 
add yet more. The record of these fastings and 
prayers of Brainerd, and of the power of God 
which followed, written only for himself, but 
wisely published by Edwards after his death, has 
brought rich blessing to the world. William Carey 
read it on his shoemaker’s bench, and asked, “ If 
God can do such things among the Indians of 
America, why not among the pagans of India ? ” 
Henry. Martyn, the thoughtful student in Cam¬ 
bridge, England, read it, and was moved by it to 
consecrate his life to missionary service in the 
East. Edward Payson pondered it, and when 
twenty-two years of age wrote in his diary : “ In 
reading Mr. Brainerd’s life, 1 seemed to feel a 
most earnest desire after some portion of his spir¬ 
it.” Considering the vast results which have fol¬ 
lowed the labors of these servants of God, who 
shall say that Brainerd has not wrought even more 
since his death, than in his life ? * And who, look- 


* “June 27, 1832.—Life of David Brainerd. Most wonderful man! What 






REGENERATION AND RENEWAL. 


39 


ing at the great sum total, can question whether or 
not it is profitable for one to wait upon the Lord 
with prayer, and fasting, and intercession, for the 
renewal of his spiritual strength ? O Holy Spirit, 
quicken us by thy mighty power, so that we may 
“ put off concerning the former conversation the 
old man, which is corrupt according to the deceit¬ 
ful lusts ; and be renewed in the spirit of our 
mind ; and that we may put on the new man , which 
after God is created in righteousness and true holi¬ 
ness.” 


conflicts, what depressions, desertions, strength, advancement, victories within thy 
torn bosom! I cannot express what I think when I think of thee. To-night 
more set on missionary enterprise than ever. ” — Mc Cheytie's Journal. 








t 












CONVERSION AND CONSECRATION. 


/ 

" I must say that I never have had so close and sat¬ 
isfactory a view of the gospel salvation, as when I have 
been led to contemplate it in the light of a simple offer 
on the one side, and a simple acceptance on the other.” 
— Thomas Chalmers. 


“ Full consecration may in one sense be the act of 
a moment and in another the woik of a lifetime. It 
must be complete to be real, and yet, if real it is always 
incomplete; a point of rest, and yet a perpetual pro¬ 
gression. Suppose you make ovei a piece of ground to 
another person. From the moment of giving the title 
deed, it is no longer your possession; it is entirely his. 
But his practical occupation of it may not appear all at 
once. There may be waste land which he will take 
into cultivation only by degrees. . . Just so it is 

with our lives. The transaction of, so to speak, making 
them over to God is definite and complete. But then 
begins the practical development of consecration.” 
— Frances Ridley Havergal. 





III. 


CONVERSION AND CONSECRATION. 



'HESE two facts in our spiritual history 


X seem to us to be often strangely confound¬ 
ed. We make a radical distinction between them. 

In conversion we receive; in consecration we 1 
give ; in the one we accept eternal life from God ; 
in the other we offer up ourselves in self-surrender 
to God; in the one we appropriate the work of 
Christ done for us, in the other we fulfil the work 
of the Spirit in us. Inquirers are not infrequently * 
counselled to give their hearts to Christ, or to con¬ 
secrate themselves to the Lord. We would not be 
over-critical with what is well meant; but really 
this is not the Gospel. The good news of grace 
is that God hath given to us eternal life and re¬ 
demption through His Son, and that in order to be 
saved the sinner has naught to do but to accept it. 
Indeed why should one be asked to give, when he 
has nothing acceptable to bring ? 

“It is more blessed to give than to receive; ” 


44 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


and the Lord who is alone worthy takes this high¬ 
est beatitude for Himself, and puts the whole race 
of unrenewed sinners into the position of helpless 


and dependent receivers. 

“For God so loved the 
world, that he gave his only 
begotten Son.” (John 3 : 
16.) 

“ The gift of God is eter¬ 
nal life.” (Rom. 6 : 23.) 

“ Christ also loved the 
church, and gave himself 
for it.” (Eph. $ : 25.) 


“ As many as received 
Him, to them gave he 
power to become the sons 
of God.” (John i : 12.) 

“Whosoever will, let him 
take the water of life freely.” 
(Rev. 22 : 17.) 

“As ye have therefore 
received the Christ Jesus 
the Lord.” (Col. 2 : 6.) 


But having received the gift of God and been 
made a partaker of His converting grace, then and 
therefore the divine obligation for service begins 
to press upon us. The Lord becomes an asker 
as soon as we have become recipients. “As ye 


* “ The gospel of the grace of God does not consist in pressing the duty defined 
by the words ‘ Give yonr heart to Christ although that is often unwisely urged 
upon inquirers after salvation as though it were the gospel. The true gospel is, 
* A cce P t tfie free gift of salvation from, wrath and sin by receiving Jesus Him¬ 
self and all the benefits he purchased with his blood” 

illiam ReidBlood of Jesus, p. 22. 





CONVERSION AND CONSECRATION. 


45 


have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord , so 
walk ye in Him ;”*let consecration crown conver¬ 
sion, let self devotement to Christ answer to His 
self devotement for you. Has the reader noticed 
the significant “ therefore ” in that earnest plea for 
consecration with which the xnth of Romans 
opens ? Just previously the question has been 
asked, “ Or who hath first given to Him, and it 
shall be recompensed unto him again ? ” Had we 
first rendered something to God, we might look 
for a return. But, on the contrary, we have re¬ 
ceived everything from Him — “ for of Him and 
through Him and to Him are all things.” And 
this is the reason why we should render to Him 
all that we have. “ I beseech you therefore , - 
brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present 
your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto 
God, which is your reasonable service.” 

One love demands another. If God has shown 
His love to us by giving His Son to die as a sacri¬ 
fice for our sins, let us show our love by giving 
ourselves to live in daily sacrifice for Him. “ By 
giving ourselves,” we say. Self-sacrifice may be 
scanted in two ways. We may give our posses- 


* Coloss. 2 : 6. 





46 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


sions, instead of giving ourselves ; or we may give 
ourselves to God’s service instead of to God him¬ 
self. In either case our sacrifice is lame and our 
consecration lacking. There must be self-surren¬ 
der to Him who surrendered Himself for us, be¬ 
fore Christ can be “all and in all.” Have we not 
found persons giving their money to charity, under 
the idea that their gift would in some way sanctify 
the giver and make him acceptable to the Lord ? 
But God requires our persons before He asks our 
purses. We are to “ present our bodies ” unto 
Him, and that will carry our possessions. For 
the body is “ the temple of the Holy Ghost,” and 
Jesus tells us that it is the temple that sanctifies 
the gold, and not the gold that sanctifies the tem¬ 
ple. The devotement of self therefore must go 
before devotement of property and possessions. 
This is the divine order which the apostle so 
thankfully recognizes in acknowledging the gifts 
of the Macedonian Christians. For making men¬ 
tion of the riches of their liberality, he adds, 
“ And this they did, not as we expected, but first 
gave their own selves to the Lord , and unto us by 
the will of God." # And for this cause he declares 


* 2 Cor. 8; 5. 




CONVERSION AND CONSECRATION. 


47 


that he ministered the gospel of God to the Gen¬ 
tiles, that being renewed by the Spirit, they might 
be fitted to give in the Spirit, “ that the offering 
up of the Gentiles might be acceptable, being 
sanctified by the Holy Ghost.” * And the oppo¬ 
site idea is equally true — that we must devote 
ourselves to the Lord\ not merely to some work for 
the Lord, which may absorb in itself the interest 
and zeal, which should be bestowed on His divine 
person. 



Now nothing is clearer than the fact that a * 


Christian gets power from God, just in proportion 
to the entireness of his self-surrender to God. If 
we ask how this is, the answer is easy. It is not 
that God keeps a strictly debt and credit account 
with the Christian, giving so much grace for so 
much sacrifice, so much power for so much humil¬ 
ity. It is by the action of a necessary law that it 
comes to pass. We know that, in the human 
body, the privation of any one of the senses only 
intensifies the power of those which remain. If, 
for example, the sight be lost, the touch and taste 
become thereby much more acute. Exactly so it 
is between the three factors of our human being— 


* Rom. 15: 16. 




4 3 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


body, soul and spirit; whatever either one sur¬ 
renders is carried over to the credit of the others, 
✓ and inures to their strength. That is why fasting 
helps communion — the carnal appetites being 
denied that the spiritual appetites may be awak¬ 
ened to a more hungry craving. Hence the signi¬ 
ficance of the plea that we present our bodies a 
living sacrifice. We should have said “ bodies and 
spirits,” and many so enlarge the exhortation. 
But no ! Let the body be surrendered up for the 
enrichment of the soul, fleshly desires repressed, 
that spiritual desires may be enlarged—the carnal 
man, in a word, sacrificed to the spiritual. 

We have seen this significant device on an an¬ 
cient seal — the effigy of a burning candle, and 
underneath it the superscription, “ I give light by 
being myself consumed.” This is the true symbol 
of Christian devotedness—giving out light by 
giving up our lives to Him who loved us — the 
zeal of God’s house consuming us while we furnish 
divine illumination to the world. 

And this leads us to urge what we believe to be 
all important to this whole subject — that we 
should make our consecration a definite, final, and 
irrevocable event in our spiritual history. It is 



CONVERSION AND CONSECRATION. 


49 


not enough for us to hear one say that he believes 
in Jesus Christ; we want a decisive and confessed 
act of acceptance. And likewise we are not satis¬ 
fied to urge upon our readers a consecrated life 
merely ; we wish to insist on the value and power 
of a solemn and definite and overshadowing act of 
consecration. Let it be made with the utmost 
deliberation, and after the most prayerful self- 
examination ; let the seal of God’s acceptance of 
it be most carefully sought; let it be final, in the 
sense of being irrevocable, but initiatory in the 
sense of being introductory to a new life — a life 
that belongs, henceforth, utterly to God, to be lived 
where He would have it lived, to be employed as 
He would have it employed, to be finished when 
He would have it finished. Oh, who is sufficient 
for such an engagement! But many have made 
it, and we find in them a living demonstration of 
its value. 

In the spiritual history of George Whitfield we 
have a striking example of such definite and whole 
hearted consecration. With the Wesleys in the 
“ Holy Club ” of Oxford, he had sought with pro¬ 
longed prayer and self-mortification for a deeper 
work of the Spirit in his heart. Whole days he 



50 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


had spent in wrestling with God for the blessing. 
He found what he sought, and, at his ordination, 
was made ready to give himself unreservedly to 
God. He thus speaks of this experience : — 

“When the Bishop laid his hands upon my head, if 
my evil heart doth not deceive me, I offered up my whole 
spirit, soul and body, to the service of God's sanctuary . 
Let come what will, life or death, depth or height, I 
shall henceforth live like one who this day, in the pres¬ 
ence of men and angels, took the holy sacrament upon 
the profession of being inwardly moved by the Holy 
Ghost to take upon me that ministration in the church.” 
“ I can call heaven and earth to wit?iess that , when the 
Bishop laid his hand upon me , I gave myself up, to be a 
martyr for Him who hung upon the cross for me . 
Known unto Him are all future events and contingen¬ 
cies. I have thrown myself blindfolded, and I trust 
without reserve into His almighty hands.” * 

Such was his vow of self-devotion to God, and 
it must be acknowledged that his whole subse¬ 
quent life attested its sincerity. And in what life, 
we may ask, has the power of consecration been 
more signally displayed ? We speak not merely 
of his seraphic eloquence, but of the immediate 


Stevens’ History of Methodism, V. I, p. 105. 





CONVERSION AND CONSECRA T10N. 


51 


saving results of his preaching. We judge that 
other preachers have produced as powerful impres¬ 
sion upon congregations — Bossuet, Robert Hall, 
Chalmers and many more. But that lightning-like 
penetration of the spoken word which rives men’s 
hearts, and lays bare their sins, and brings out the 
tears of penitence j —here is the test of power. 
And from the very first sermon of Whitfield, when 
fifteen were driven to an agony of conviction, to 
the last, this was the uniform result of his minis¬ 
try. John Newton records of him that in a single 
week he received no less than a thousand letters 
from those distressed in conscience under his 
preaching. Surely this was not the fruit of his 
“graceful oratory,” which Franklin and' Chester¬ 
field so much admired ; but of that power from on 
high which is promised to those who are ready to 
tarry in Jerusalem until they be endued with it. 
How significant the apostle’s description of effective 
preaching ! “For our gospel came not unto you 
in word only, but also in power and in the Holy 
Ghost a 7 id in much assurance * 

Words, kindled and glowing with the fire of 
intellectual excitement, can rouse and thrill and 


1 Thess. 1 : 5. 




52 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


overpower, till the effect seems something quite 
supernatural. But intellect and the Holy Spirit 
must not be confounded. The highest reach of 
genius comes far short of the lowest degree of 
inspiration. To electrify a hearer is one thing; to 
bring a hearer prostrate at the feet of Jesus is 
quite another. The one effect is “ in word only ” ; 
the other is “ in power and in the Holy Ghost.” 
And the latter result we have often seen accom¬ 
plished through the plainest speech, and by the 
humblest instruments. But how subtle and elu¬ 
sive is the “power” ! He who desires it for the 
sake of being great, can no more have it than 
Simon Magus could buy it with money. How 
many a servant of God has quenched the Spirit 
in his inordinate desire to shine ; how often has 
the soul-winner gone out of the pulpit because the 
orator has come in and filled the entire foreground 
with himself. So then the rhetorician cannot 
teach us the secret. He can help us in word 
only. The consecration, by which we put our- 
selves utterly into the hands of God, to be subject 
to His will and to be swayed by His Spirit, is the 
' only true pathway to power. 

Of course as there are diversities of gifts from 




CONVERSION AND CONSECRA TION. 


53 


the same Spirit, so the manifestations of spiritual 
energy will be widely various. 

We will select an example which stands in total 
contrast from that just considered. Stephen Grel- 
let, the saintly Quaker, was endued with extraor¬ 
dinary power as a witness for Christ. “ Over two 
hemispheres he bore a testimony adapted, with 
marvellous wisdom, alike to dwellers in palaces 
and in slaves' huts ; to the inmates of ecclesiasti¬ 
cal mansions and common jails, and yet none the 
less suited to the periodic meetings of Friends, 
and to large assemblies of Roman Catholics and 
Protestants, in Europe and America."* His 
was preeminently a ministry of love. The 
word in the mouth of Whitfield was a sharp two- 
edged sword, piercing and wounding unto life eter¬ 
nal. From the lips of Grellet that word distilled 
like the dew, even “as the dew of Hermon that 
descended upon the mountains of Zion ; for there 
the Lord commanded the blessing, even life for¬ 
evermore." 

If we ask whence this strange enchantment 
which he threw over human hearts so that they 
opened to his words irresistibly, in spite of preju- 


* Life of Stephen Grellet, by William Guest, p. 3. 





54 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


dice and stern tradition, the answer is easily found. 
It was the love of Christ acting divinely through 
one who had given himself up to be led of God, 
and who, as (he wrote on the last page of his jour¬ 
nal, had learned the habit of “ keeping a single eye 
to the putting forth of the Divine Spirit” This 
good man had had his Pentecost,—blessed and 
never to be forgotten, from which he dated a new 
enduement of power. Referring to the time and 
place of this transaction he says : — 

“ There the Lord was pleased, in an humbling and 
memorable manner, to visit me again and to comfort 
me. I had gone into the woods, which are there mostly 
of very lofty and large pines, and my mind being in¬ 
wardly retired before the Lord, He was pleased so to 
reveal His love to me, through His blessed Son, my 
Saviour, that many fears and doubts were at that time 
removed, my soul’s wounds were healed, my mourning 
was turned into joy. He clothed me with the garment 
of praise, instead of the spiiit of heaviness, and He 
strengthened me to offer up myself again freely to Him 
a?id to His service for my whole life . Walk, O my soul, 
in that path which thy blessed Master has trodden be¬ 
fore thee and has consecrated for thee. Be willing also 
to die to thyself, that thou mayest live through faith in 
Him.” 



CONVERSION AND CONSECRATION. 


55 


Here is a life which constituted a kind of living 
exegesis of that text, “ speaking the truth in 
love.” And, accustomed as we are, to measure 
power by outward demonstration, it furnishes a 
most instructive lesson for us. Two chemical ele¬ 
ments which are very mild and innocuous in them¬ 
selves, often have prodigious energy when com¬ 
bined. So it is of love and truth. Those who 
preach love alone are often the weakest and most 
ineffective witnesses for Christ. Those who preach 
the truth alone, not infrequently demonstrate'the 
feebleness of a soulless orthodoxy.' But the truth 
in love is vital, penetrating, and has the dynamic 
force which we seek. See how Paul, the apostle 
of truth, and John, the apostle of love, match and 
supplement each other on this point. “ Speaking 
the truth in love" writes the one. “ Unto the well 

V 

beloved Gaius, whom I love in the truth” writes 
the other. Love furnishing the atmosphere of 
truth, the medium through which it shines, and by 
which it is transmitted; and truth lending its 
gravity and restraint to love, and so preventing it 
from flying off into a (reckless and indiscriminate 
toleration^ — this is the combination which gives 
true power. “ Grace is poured into thy lips ; there- 



56 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


fore God hath blessed thee forever." Grace that 
wings the gentle speech ; grace that imparts the 
heavenly unction; grace that is invested with 
“the irresistible might of weakness/’ — this is the 
true secret of divine efficiency, — and yet only half 
the secret. “ Grace and truth came by Jesus 
Christ.” Oh for a conformity to Christ and a non¬ 
conformity to the worfd, that shall enable us to 
grasp both these gifts. Then the highway of 
power will be open before us, and we may realize 
the beautiful ideal of the faithful witness : “He 
had eyes lifted up to heaven, the best of books was 
in his hand, the law of truth was written upon his 
lips , the world was behind his back. He stood as 
if he pleaded with men ; and a crown of glory did 
hang over his head.” * 

Let it not be presumed, however, that the way 
of consecration is a way exempt from sacrifices 
and perils. One who moves in this direction is 
certain to encounter the adversary at every step. 
The moment the believer makes any determined 
advance toward holiness, that moment the evil one 
moves up his picket line for desperate resistance. 


Bunyan. 




CONVERSION AND CONSECRATION. 


57 


Pastor Blumhardt,—who in this generation has 
wrought such conquests in prayer and faith, — 
lays special emphasis on this point, telling us that 
“ he who is ignorant of the wiles and artifices of 
the enemy, only beats the air, and the devil is not 
afraid of him.” Let the reader study the life of 
this remarkable man, if he would learn what pos¬ 
sibilities of spiritual power are still open to us. 
Amid the freezing rationalism of Tubingen Uni¬ 
versity, here was one young heart which kept it¬ 
self kindled with the fire of Pentecost, and by 
surrendering itself up in daily consecration, was 
preparing to give the world a living demonstration 
of the things which the learned men of that uni¬ 
versity had set themselves to deny. We see him 
raising the sick by his prayers, casting out devils, 
and bringing whole communities to the foot of the 
cross in penitence. But Satan was always at his 
right hand to resist him. “ In interesting myself 
in behalf of one possessed,” he writes, “ I became 
involved in such a fearful conflict with the powers 
of darkness, as is not possible for me to describe.” 
Underscore this passage, oh reader. It has a broad 
significance. When something extraordinary is to 
be done for Christ, hell from beneath will be moved 




THE TWO-FOLD LIFE . 


53 


to resist it. The marks of Martin Luther’s ink- 
stand on Wartburg castle are not the traces of a 
pitiable superstition. Here is a man who is to 
shake all Europe with a new revival, and where on 
earth or under the earth is Satan so likely to mass 
his forces as in this monk’s cell. Brother Martin 
is not throwing his ink-horn at a phantom, when 
he hurls it at the devil. It is very necessary to 
touch on this point, because every aspirant after 
holiness is certain to be assailed with peculiar con¬ 
flicts and temptations ; and it is natural to regard 
these as indications that dangerous ground has 
been entered upon, when they are often only evi¬ 
dences that we are entering upon higher ground. 

That gifted woman in whom inspiration and 
aspiration were so beautifully blended, Frances 
* Ridley Havergal, makes a cheering comment on a 
familiar text of Scripture — “ Behold, I give unto 
you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and 
over all the power of the enemy.” “ Why this is 
grand,” she writes, “power over all the power of 
the enemy. Just where he is strongest, there they 
shall prevail. Not over his weak points and places, 
but over the very centre of his power; not over 
his power here and there, or now and then, but 



CONVERSION' AND CONSECRA TION. 


59 


over all his power. And Jesus said it. Isn’t it 
enough to go into battle with ? ” * 

She was encouraging her own heart when she 
wrote these words. What a lofty path of spiritu¬ 
ality she traversed! Has the reader of her biog. 
raphy marked the open secret of her consecrated 
career? It is found in the same experience, of 
which we have spoken elsewhere, of definite, whole 
souled devotement to God. This is the record of 
it, which she has left behind : — 

“ It was on Advent Sunday, December, 1873, that I 
first saw clearly the blessedness of true consecration. 
I saw it as a flash of electric light; and what you see, 
you can never unsee. There must be full surrender before 
there can be full blessedness. God admits you by the one 
into the other. He Himself showed me this most clear¬ 
ly. You know how singularly I have been withheld 
from attending conventions and conferences; man’s 
teaching has consequently but little to do with it. First 
I was shown that the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, 
cleanseth from all sin ; and then it was made plain to 
me that He who had thus cleansed me, had power to 
keep me clean ; so I utterly yielded myself to Him and 
utterly trusted Hi?n to keep me.” 


Memorials of Frances R Havergal, p 10. 





6o 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


In literature and in life, she served her genera¬ 
tion with rare effectiveness. Her works are suf¬ 
fused with a beautiful glow of spiritual health ; and 
in reading her books of sacred poetry and devo¬ 
tion, honored with an almost unprecedented circu¬ 
lation, we wonder if any one in our day has spoken 
more directly to the heart of man, and more direct¬ 
ly from the heart of God. And thus the lesson is 
pressed upon us anew of the power of a sanctified 
life. 

In treating thus of special acts of consecration, 
we would interpose a caution against written cove¬ 
nants with God. To yield ourselves up to Him in* 
full self-surrender is one thing; to bind ourselves 
to do and to suffer certain things for Him, is quite 
another* The divine nature within us may be 
strong enough to perform such vows, but human 
nature is insolvent, and all its promises are but 
a bankrupt’s bond. And this human nature is 
still a partner in the firm that makes the contract, 
just as our Lord so solemnly declared in the face 
of His disciples’ failure and desertion. “The 
spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." Dr. 
Doddridge recommended a written compact with 
the Lord. “ Set your hand and seal to it, that on 



CONVERSION AND CONSECRA TION 


61 


such a day of such a month and year, and at such 
a place, on full consideration, and serious reflec¬ 
tion, you came to the happy resolution, that what¬ 
ever others might do, you would serve the Lord.” 
The excellent Samuel Pearce of Birmingham, fol¬ 
lowed this advice in his early Christian life. He 
wrote his solemn league and covenant with God, 
and to make it the more binding he opened a vein 
in his arm and signed it with his own blood. But 
when in a little while he found how utterly he had 
broken this sacred engagement, he was plunged 
into despair, and only found release when he tore 
up the document and scattered it to the winds, and 
cast himself henceforth entirely upon the “ blood 
of the everlasting covenant.” * 

We do not say that such a method can never be 
of use. It may in some instances. John Freder¬ 
ick Oberlin, the devoted and apostolic pastor, seems 
to have found it so. He certainly furnishes an¬ 
other striking illustration of the influence of defi- 

* John Howe, in his discourse on Self-dedication, tells of a devout French 
nobleman who made a quit-claim deed of himself to God, and signed the docu¬ 
ment with his own blood — “whose affection I commend,’’ he adds, “ more than 
h:s expression of it. ’’ And well he might. When God takes security he wants a 
good name, and a trustworthy signature. We are only safe when we present “ the 
name above every name,’’ and trust alone in “the blood of the New Testament.” 





62 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


nite and entire consecration. Let one read of the 
astonishing change effected through his ministry 
in the morals and condition of his little flock in 
Waldbach, amid the wilds of Northern France; 
or let one ponder the exquisite story of the orphan 
girl, Louise Schepler, so impressed by the holiness 
and self-denial of this good pastor’s life, that she 
begged the privilege of serving him without wages 
or reward, so long as she should live. The clue 
to his remarkable power may doubtless be found 
in a document which was left among his papers. 
It is long, but we give a paragraph which contains 
its pith and substance : — 

“ In the name of the Lord of Hosts, I this day re¬ 
nounce all former lords that have had dominion over 
me ; the joys of the world in which I have too much 
delighted, and all carnal desires. I renounce all per¬ 
ishable things in order that God may constitute my All. 
I consecrate to Thee all that I am , and all that I have; 
the faculties of i?iy mind, the members of my body, my for¬ 
tune and my time. Grant me grace, O Father of mer¬ 
cies, to employ all to Thy glory, and in obedience to 
Thy commands. For ardently and humbly, I desire to 
be Thine through the endless ages of eternity. Should 
Thou be pleased to make me in this life the instrument 



CONVERSION AND CONSECRATION. 63 


in leading others to Thee, give me strength and courage 
openly to declare Thy name. And enable me, not only 
to devote myself to Thy service, but to persuade my 
brethren to dedicate themselves to it also.” * 

Strasbourg, 1st of Jan., 1760. 

Renewed at Waldbach , ist Jan., 1770. 

We have given quite enough in these examples 
to exhibit the intimate and certain relation of per¬ 
sonal consecration to spiritual power. But in all 
that we have said, we have assumed that the Holy 
Spirit is the Sanctifier and Sealer of this conse¬ 
cration. Our Lord Jesus Christ here, as in all 
things, is our Pattern and Exemplar. “ For their 
sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be 
sanctified through the truth.”f Exemplar, we 
said. He is more than this — He is our life. It 
is His divine nature working in us which can alone 
effect this great transaction. He acted in and 
through the Holy Ghost in His self-devotement — 
‘‘Who through the Eternal Spirit offered Himself 
without spot unto God.”:): How much more must 
we rely upon that divine inworking ! We need the 
Spirit by whom to seek the Spirit, Christ’s conse¬ 
cration by which to consecrate ourselves, God’s 


* Life of Oberlin, p. 26. 


t John 17: 19. 


$ Heb. 9: 14. 





6 4 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


Supreme gift, the Comforter by whom to give our¬ 
selves to God. Oh Holy Spirit, who dost make 
our bodies thy habitation, consecrate that in which 
Thou dost dwell, that it may be “ a vessel unto 
honor, sanctified and meet for the Master’s use, 
and prepared unto every good work.” 



IV. 


SALVATION AND SEALING. 




“Faith saves us; but how? — by making us aware 
of Christ, who saves. Faith does not make things what 
they are but shows us them as they are in Christ. Cer¬ 
tain systems lay a pressure upon the subjective side 
greater than the spirit of man is at all times able to bear; 
working out all things from the depths of individual 
consciousness as if truths were not there at all until 
they are manifestly there for us. Happy for us if Christ 
can look there and find his own image reflected, how¬ 
ever faintly; but we must look at Him, at the sun in the 
heavens, not at the sun in the brook, its broken and 
ever varying reflection.” — Dora Greenwell. 


“If we can learn aright how Christ was sealed, we 
shall learn how we are sealed. The sealing of Christ 
by the Father was the communication of the Holy Ghost 
in all His fullness to Him, authorizing Him unto and 
acting His Divine power in all the acts and duties of 
His office, so as to evidence the presence of God unto 
Him and appropriation of Him. So in God’s sealing 
of believers He owns them and gives them His Holy 
Spirit to fit them for their relations, to enable them 
unto their duties, to act their new principles, and every 
way to discharge the work they are called to do. He 
gives them the Spirit of power — of love — and of a 
sound mind. And hereby does God seal them.” — 
John Owen, 



IV. 


SALVATION AND SEALING. 

AITH in the promise and in the person of ** 



jL Jesus Christ is that which secures salvation 
to us ; the enduement of the Holy Spirit is that 
which gives us power in laboring for the salvation 
of others. The word on which we rest for the one 
blessing is, “Verily, verily, I say unto you he that 
believeth on me hath everlasting life ; ” the word 
on which we rest for the other blessing is, “Ye 
shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is 
come upon you.” And we find in Scripture that 
there are two seals for attesting these two prom¬ 
ises : 

“ He that hath received His testimony hath set 
to his seal that God is true” John 3 : 33. 

“After that ye believed ye were sealed with the 
Holy Spirit of Promise .” Eph. 1: 13. 


68 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


Very simple and beautiful is the way of faith as 

* described in the first of these texts. To believe 
what God says concerning his Son is the first 
requirement for obeying the Gospel. Faith simply 
believes what God has declared, and accepts what 
he has done for us through the redemption of his 
Son. And here is the sharp distinction between 
him that believeth and him that believeth not. 
God has borne witness to his Son that he is the 
Christ. “ Who is a liar but he that denieth that 

* Jesus is the Christ?” asks John; but “Whoso¬ 
ever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of 
God,” * says the same apostle. Such is the great 
gulf between faith and unbelief. Again, God has 
declared that we have life in his Son and in him 
alone. “ And this is the record, that God hath 
given to us eternal life, and this life is in his 
Son.”f But says the Scripture once more, “He 
that believeth not God hath made him a liar , be¬ 
cause he believeth not the record that God gave of 
his Son ; ” while on the contrary, “ he that receiv- 
eth his testimony hath set to his seal that God is 
true.” 


* i John s: i. 


f i John 5: 10, 11. 




SAL VA TION AND SEALING. 69 

----a 

Now we cannot emphasize the fact too strongly, 
that it is faith in the Son of God and faith only 
by which we are saved. Feeling may act very 
powerfully in connection with the Spirit’s work in 
us, but it is faith alone that can appropriate 'S 
Christ’s work for us. And in noway can we so 
honor God as by taking his promise, “ He that 
believeth on the Son hath life,” and stamping it 
with the signet of our faith — “ That is true .” 
Not because we have proved it or felt it, but be- ~ 
cause God has said it, is our assurance. “ Said I 
not unto thee that if thou wouldest believe , thou 
shouldst see the glory of God ? ” asks Jesus. Our 
order would have been, let me first see and then I 
will believe. But trust is never so simple and 
genuine as when it is blind,and has nothing to rest 
on but the bare word of God. Faith and reason 
are like the two compartments of an hour-glass; 
the one can only be full when the other is empty. 
That is to say, faith is at its best when it has noth-' 
ing of proof or reason to rest upon, but grounds 
its assurance absolutely in the testimony of the 
Lord ; and it is at its least when it believes only 
because of clear demonstration. Whatever of evi¬ 
dence or emotion therefore comes in as proof, de- 



;o 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


tracts just so much from faith’s simplicity, and 
from our full share in the benediction, “ Blessed 
are they that have not seen and yet have be¬ 
lieved.” * Again and again the Scriptures declare 
that he that believeth on the Son hath eternal 
life — hath it, that is, in germ and embryo, as one 
has the harvest who has the seed from which it 
springs. The words of Scripture are called indeed 
“the incorruptible seed.” To receive and credit 
the word of God concerning his Son is therefore 
to receive life or regeneration. “Being born again 
not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible, by 
the Word of God which liveth and abideth for¬ 
ever.” f 

Thus in the beginning it was those that “ gladly 
received the word ” that were baptized and added 
to the church. All this puts weighty emphasis on 
the duty we have been urging, of sealing God’s 
promises with our hearty and confident amen. 
And we would commend a faith that even seems 
audacious, like that of the sturdy Covenanter, 
Robert Bruce, who requested as he was dying, 
that his finger might be placed on one of God’s 
strong promises, as though to challenge the Judge 


* John 20: 29. 


t 1 Pet. 1: 23. 




SAL VA TION AND . SEALING. 


7 1 


of all with it as he should enter his presence.* As 
we stand face to face with the Word we cannot be 
too bold. 

There is again another sealing which is men¬ 
tioned in the Scriptures, and which supplements 
this as a divine testimony to the fact of accept¬ 
ance. “ After that ye believed ye were sealed with 
the Holy Spirit of promise,” f says Paul writing 
to the Ephesians. There are many allusions in 
Scripture to this transaction, and the general tenor 
of these references indicates that it is a special 
enduement of the Spirit subsequent to that regen¬ 
eration of the Spirit which takes place when one 
believes. Such is the inference in the epistle to 
the Corinthians where the apostle, addressing those 
who have been established in the promises of God, 
adds, “ Who hath also scaled us and given the 
earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.” $ As our 
faith authenticates the Lord’s promise by setting 
to it our yea and amen, the Holy Spirit now 
authenticates us as the sons of God by giving to 

* A sublime instance of this boldness of faith is given by Dr. John Brown, m 
his Horae Subsecivae , of a Scotch woman who was asked on her death-bed, 
“ What would you say if God, after all he has done, should let you drop into 
hell?” She replied, “E’en as He likes; but if He does He’ll lose mair than 
I’ll do.” 

t Eph. i: 13. “ In whom having also believed ye were sealed with the Holy 
Spirit of Promise.” (Revised Version.) t 2 Cor. 1: 22. 




7 2 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


us the first-fruits of our inheritance, in the joy 
and assurance and guidance and strength of the 
indwelling Comforter. On this ground rests the 
solemn appeal in the epistle to the Ephesians — 
“Grieve not the Spirit of God in whom ye were 
sealed unto the day of redemption.” * 

While there is much that is mysterious and dif¬ 
ficult to apprehend in this subject, we believe that 
we can get more light concerning it from the ex¬ 
ample and experience of Jesus Christ than any¬ 
where else, since he is the pattern for his brethren 
in all things. Jesus says, referring to himself, 
“ For Him hath God the Father sealed." f This 
evidently refers to what took place at his baptism. 
Let us go to the banks of the Jordan and witness 
the divine transaction and that which follows it. 
As he comes forth from the water we see “ the 
Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting 
upon him;" a voice is heard from heaven saying, 
“ This is my beloved Son , in whom I am well 
pleased;” Jesus “being///// of the Holy Ghost , 
returned from the Jordan ; ” he is “ led by the Spirit 
into the wilderness ; ” he , afterwards returns “ in 
the power of the Spirit; ” and going into the syna- 


Eph. 4 30. 


t John 6; 27. 




SAL VA TION AND SEALING. 


73 


gogue he applies to Himself the words of the 
prophet, “ The Spirit of the Lord (is upon me be¬ 
cause he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to 
the poor .” * 

This was our Lord’s enduement or sealing by 
the Holy Ghost in preparation for his public ser¬ 
vice. And what an impressive lesson it is for us, 
that, though he was the divine Son of God, yet He 
henceforth did all things in dependence upon the 
Spirit; from the beginning of his ministry, when 
he said, “ I by the Spirit of God cast out devils,” 
to the end when “ through the Eternal Spirit he of¬ 
fered up himself without spot unto God.” Now mark 
how every feature of the Lord’s sealing is repro¬ 
duced in that of his disciples, after the Holy Ghost 
has come upon them. They also have the assur¬ 
ance of sonship; “the Spirit himself beareth wit¬ 
ness with our spirits that we are the children of 
GodS\ They have the same divine guidance, “ for 
as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are 
the sons of God.”$ They are indwelt by the same 
Spirit; “and they were all filled with the Holy 
GhostS || They are endued with the same energy; 

* Luke 4: 1-20. t Rom. 8: 16. t Rom. 8: 14. 

II Acts 2:4; 1:8. 1 John 2 : 27. 


v/ 





74 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


“ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost 
is come upon you.” They have the same divine 
unction; “the anointing which ye have received 
ahidcth on you.” 

Here certainly is one seal for both Master and 
disciple, since all the lines and features of the two 
impressions exactly correspond. In the case of 
Jesus Christ this transaction was a distinct and 
divine enduement for his public ministry. Is it so 
with his followers ? Certainly it was with the first 
disciples. The same event happened to the body 
of believers on the day of Pentecost which befell 
the Lord at the Jordan. Both alike were baptized 
with the Holy Ghost. “ Is the day of Pentecost 
then to be perpetually repeated ?” it will be asked. 
To which we answer, “No! and yes!” As the 
inauguration of the Spirit’s ministry in the church 
it cannot be repeated. On that day the Holy 
Ghost in his abiding personal presence came into 
the church to guide and order and inspire it, 
henceforth throughout this dispensation. As 
Christmas was the incarnation of the second per¬ 
son of the Trinity, when the Word was made 
flesh and tabernacled among us, so Pentecost was 
a kind of incarnation of the third person when the 




SAL VA TION AND SEALING. 


75 


Holy Spirit came to dwell in the body of believers, 
so that each Christian is now “ the temple of the 
Holy Ghost” and the whole church is “the habi¬ 
tation of God through the Spirit.” 

Since this wonderful event has come to pass, 
the Holy Spirit’s home and place of ministry is 
here on earth, just as truly as Jesus Christ’s pres¬ 
ent habitation and seat of intercession is in heaven 
at God’s right hand. Therefore we need not pray 
for the Comforter to be sent down, for he is here 
as truly as Christ was here in the days of his 
humiliation. But while this is true, we are to 
remember that the presence of the Spirit is one 
thing,and the power and fullness of the Spirit an-" • 
other. When Jesus sent forth the seventy on 
their ministry of grace he said, “ Behold I give 
unto you power” * and then invested them with his 
own divine prerogatives of preaching, and healing, 
and casting out demons. So the Spirit who is 
now present in the church gives power for service N > 
to those who seek it. In this sense the experience 
of Pentecost can be repeated. It is still our privi- * 
lege to pray for the baptism of the Spirit, and to 
tarry in supplication until we be “endued with 


* Luke xo: 19. 





;6 


THE TWOFOLD LIFE. 


power from on high.” And a careful reading of 
the Acts of the Apostles would seem to indicate 
that this experience is something quite distinct 
from regeneration, being no less than an invest¬ 
ment of the believer with a special divine energy 
and efficiency for carrying on God’s work.* “Did 
ye receive the Holy Ghost when ye believed ? ” f 
asks Paul of certain disciples at Ephesus. Believ¬ 
ers and disciples they certainly were, but this did 
not carry the certainty with it that they had re¬ 
ceived the power of the Spirit. On the contrary, 
they lacked this until by the laying on of the apos¬ 
tles’ hands “ the Holy Ghost came upon them ” ; 
then they “spoke with tongues and prophesied.” 
After the day of Pentecost we hear Peter urging 
his hearers, by obeying the gospel, to seek for 
“the gift of the Holy Ghost,” adding, “for the 


* “ God’s sealing of believers is his gracious communication of the Holy Ghost 
unto them, so to act by divine power in them as to enable them unto all the 
duties of their holy callings evidencing them to be accepted with him both to 
themselves and others, and asserting their preservation unto eternal salvation. 
The effects of this sealing are, gracious operations of the Spirit m and upon be¬ 
lievers , but the sealing itself is the communication of the Spirit unto them. For 
it is not said that the Holy Ghost seals us, but that we are sealed with him. He 
is God’s seal unto us. . . . Where God sets this seal such effects will be pro¬ 
duced as shall fall under the observation of the world.” — John Owen (1616- 1683). 
t Acts 19 . 2. (Revised Version.) 




SAL VA TION AND SEALING. 


77 


promise is unto you and to your children, and to 
all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our 
God shall call.” So that like the upper-room dis¬ 
ciples we can come pleading an explicit promise 
when we ask for the fullness, and power, and in¬ 
dwelling of the Comforter. 

Have we noticed how almost every great con¬ 
quest of preaching or working recorded in the 
Acts is introduced by the words, “ and being filled 
wilh the Holy Ghostfi * he did thus ? In this 
record of the early church’s history we have the 
autobiography of the Holy Ghost, if we may say 
so; or rather the opening chapter of such an auto¬ 
biography. It is the acts of the Spirit, as he 
moves and empowers men, of which we are here 
reading. Have there been no subsequent chapters 
of this book unfolding in later times ? Let the 
lives of some modern saints as they shall pass be¬ 
fore us answer this question. Let us look at their 
closet exercises, and at their field conquests, and 
ask if it does not seem that we have in these lat¬ 
ter-day Christians a fac-simile of the sealing and 
wonder working of the first disciples. 

Now sealing we hold to be the divine side of 


* Acts 4; 8, 13. 19 Eph. 5: 18. 





78 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


consecration — God’s token of approval and accept¬ 
ance of our self-surrender to Him. When the soul 
offers itself as the soft and plastic wax he can 
stamp it with his signet-ring, marking it thus as 
his own peculiar property, and setting it apart for 
his own peculiar use until the day of redemption. 
Often the sealing is effected without observation 
or recognition on the part of its subject. Its traits 
are visible, — assurance of adoption, power in tes¬ 
timony, the joy of the Holy Ghost, and the blessed 
sense of belonging entirely to the Lord. These 
constitute the signature of the Spirit’s work upon 
the heart. But the operation itself may have been 
quite silent and unobserved. On the other hand, 
in scores of devoted Christian lives this divine 
transaction has been most distinctly noted. It 
has been signalized and made forever memorable 
by a conscious and definite experience. 

The diary of Jonathan Edwards furnishes a re¬ 
markable exhibition of the various stages of the 
Spirit’s work in the heart. His conversion was 
clearly marked; and at a later period his full 
consecration and separation unto God not less 
distinctly. He gives us this record of a sacred 
hour:— 



SAL VA TION AND SEALING. 


79 


“ Once as I rode out into the woods for my health in 
1737, having alighted from my horse in a retired place, 
as my manner commonly has been, to walk for divine 
contemplation and prayer, I had a view that was for me 
extraordinary, of the glory of the Son of God, as Medi¬ 
ator between God and man, and his wonderful, great, 
full, pure, and sweet grace and love, and meek and gen¬ 
tle condescension. The grace that appeared so calm 
and sweet, appeared also great above the heavens. 
The person of Christ appeared ineffably excellent, with 
an excellency great enough to swallow up all thought 
and conception — which continued, as near as I can 
judge, about an hour ; which kept me a greater part of 
the time in a flood of tears and weeping aloud. I felt 
an ardency of soul to be , what I know not otherwise how 
to express, emptied and annihilated; to lie in the dust and 
be full of Christ alone ; to love him with a holy and pure 
love; to trust in him ; to live upon him ; to serve him; 
and to be perfectly sanctified a?id made pure with a divine 
and heavenly purity * 

We have heard Edwards called “the Isaiah of 
the Christian dispensation,” profound wisdom and 
seraphic devotion being so wonderfully united in 
him. Certainly here is a scene in the great theo¬ 
logian’s life which is strangely like that which the 


* Works, V. I, p 2t. 




8o 


THE TWO - FOLD LIFE . 


prophet has so vividly pictured in his own.* 
There is the same overpowering vision of the 
Lord, the same melting of heart before his awful 
purity, and the same self-surrendering consecra¬ 
tion to his service. If the sealing of the Spirit 
can ever be discovered in the lives of modern 
saints, we should say that here is a conspicuous 
instance. And as we hear him preaching at En¬ 
field not long after, when, as he speaks, the impres¬ 
sion of eternal things is so powerful that men cling 
to the pillars of the church, trembling before the 
impending terror of the Lord, which he so vividly 
pictures, we exclaim, “ Truly, the anointing which 
he hath received abideth on him”! Who shall 
say that if Christ’s servants are still “ filled with 
the Holy Ghost” and speak the word of God with 
boldness, the place of assembly will not still be 
shaken ? 

As for the great theologian himself, he furnishes 
a rare example of baptized intellect. His reason¬ 
ing is a kind of lofty adoration — a magnificent 
“ Te Deum ” set to argument. The pathway of his 
thought is often fairly ablaze with love, while his 
love seems ever to find the highest expression in 


* Isaiah 6 : 1-8. 




SAL VA TION AND SEALING. 


Si 


contemplating the greatness and glory of God. 
Where others are subdued by the manifestations 
of divine goodness, his heart seems most melted 
and his affections most powerfully kindled by view¬ 
ing the matchless holiness and infinite sovereignty 
of God. He gives a most impressive example of 
great powers consecrated and anointed. 

Turning from the profound theologian to a 
youthful student, we find a similar working of the 
Spirit, and similar exhibitions of power in the 
Lord’s service. 

James Brainerd Taylor had been converted at 
the age of fifteen. Six years after he experienced 
a remarkable blessing from the Spirit. All his 
subsequent papers refer to this date as the most 
important era in his Christian life. This is his 
account, somewhat abridged, of what then occur¬ 
red : — 

“ It was on the 23d of April, 1822, when I was on a 
visit to Haddam, in Connecticut. Memorable day! 
The time and place will never, no, never, be forgotten ! 
I recur to it at this moment with thankful remembrance. 
For a long time my desire had been that the Lord would 
visit me, and fill me with the Holy Ghost —my cry to 
him was, seal my soul forever thine . I lifted up my 



82 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


"heart in prayer that the blessing might descend. I felt 
that I needed something I did not possess. There was 
a void within which must be filled, or I could not be 
happy. My earnest desire was then, as it had been 
ever since I professed religion six years before, that all 
love of the world might be destroyed — all selfishness 
extirpated — pride banished — unbelief removed — all 
idols dethroned — everything hostile to holiness and 
opposed to the divine will crucified ; that holiness to 
the Lord might be engraved on my heart, and evermore 
characterize my conversation. My mind was led to 
reflect on what would probably be my future situation. 
It Recurred to me, I am to be hereafter a minister of the 
Gospel. But how shall I be able to preach in my pres¬ 
ent state of mind ? I cannot — never, no, never shall 
I be able to do it with pleasure, without great overturn¬ 
ings in my soul. I felt that I needed that for which I 
was then, and for a long time had been, hungering and 
thirsting. I desired it, not for my benefit only, but for 
that of the church and the world. At this very juncture 
I was most delightfully conscious of giving up all to God. 
I was enabled in my heart to say, Here, Lord , take me , 
take my whole soul, a?id seal me thine—thine now and 
thine forever. 1 If thou wilt thou canst make me clean.’ 
Then there ensued such emotions as I never before 
experienced. All was calm and tranquil — and a 



SALVATION AND SEALING. 


83 


heaven of love pervaded my whole soul. I had a wit¬ 
ness of God’s love to me and of mine to him. Shortly 
after I was dissolved in tears of love and gratitude to 
our blessed Lord. The name of Jesus was precious to 
me ; * ’Twas music in my ear.’ He came as King, and 
took full possession of my heart; and I was enabled to 
say, 4 1 am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; 
yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.’ Let him, as King 
of kings and Lord of lords, reign in me, reign without 
a rival forever.” * 

The invariable accompaniment of such visita¬ 
tions of the Spirit, we find throughout the whole 
subsequent history of this young man. His com¬ 
munion with God was of the most elevated and 
transforming character. It seemed literally as 
though it were Christ for him to live. For wher¬ 
ever he went he exhibited the Lord Jesus so con¬ 
spicuously, in his example, in his words and in his 
persuasions, that men could not resist the power 
with which he lived and spoke. Dying at the age 
of twenty-eight, his labors had nevertheless been 
such a blessing to his generation, that many ser¬ 
vants cf God, living till threescore and ten, might 
be glad to leave behind them such a record. His 


* Memoir, pp. 86, 87. 





THE TWO-FOLD LIFE . 


84 

college and seminary vacations were spent in evan¬ 
gelistic labors, and during these seasons he toiled 
like an apostle. Night and day with tears he 
warned men. Publicly and from house to house 
he exhorted, and entreated and prayed. And 
wherever he went, revivals seemed to break forth 
as though he carried some resistless divine influ¬ 
ence in his person, and hundreds in a town would 
be converted during a single visit. His o\frn soul 
meanwhile lived in the most exultant fellowship 
with the Father and the Son. He makes the same 
record that Edwards does, that the one memora¬ 
ble season of divine visitation was followed by 
many others, in which the tides of heavenly love 
and delight filled and flooded the soul. The joy 
of that first baptism and its accompanying power 
remained unto the end. 

Undoubtedly the regeneration of the Spirit and 
the enduement of the Spirit are often embraced in 
a single experience.* Christian Eddy, who lived 
to prove so remarkably how the faithful house ser- 


*“ Both gifts came upon St. Paul at once —the indwelling of the Holy Ghost 
and the enduement for service. This was so with him, but individuals have differ¬ 
ent experiences in that regard Often the enduement comes later than conversion, 
because it was not sought at the time of conversion. Andrew Bonar. 





SAL VA TION AND, SEALING. 


85 


vant and the illustrious saint may be combined in 
one, gives an example of this experience. She 
says artlessly— “At my conversion it seemed as 
though the Dove rested on my hearty and he has 
never left me since ” / * So they also thought, 
thou true yoke-fellow of Christ, who beheld thy 
holiness and steadfastness in the gospel. If the 
gift to win the hardest and most hopeless sinners 
to Christ, and amid all rebuffs to keep the crown 
of meekness unsullied, be not an evidence of the 
baptism and abiding of that Spirit which descend¬ 
ed like a dove and rested in power upon the Lord, 
we know not where such evidence could be found. 
The career of this Cornwall servant is a sufficient 
demonstration, if any were needed, that the high¬ 
est endowments of the Spirit are not alone for 
the eminent theologian and the deeply instructed 
saint. So is the history of William Carvosso, the 
humble fisherman on the coast of England. He 
had not learned to write his name till after he was 
sixty-five years of age. But at twenty-one the 
Lord wrote upon him his new name. One year 
after, he records that he was visited with a gra¬ 
cious anointing of the Spirit. He had wrestled in 


* Consecrated Women, p. 231. 




86 


TIIR TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


secret places for the power of the Lord to come 
upon him, and on March 13th, 1772, in a little 
prayer meeting, he relates that a most blessed 
experience was granted him. He says : — 

“ Now I felt that I was nothing and Christ was all in 
all. Him I now cheerfully received in all his offices — 
my Prophet to teach me, my Priest to atone for me, my 
King to reign over me. Oh what boundless happiness 
there is in Christ! and all for such a poor sinner as I.” 

The evidence that he at this time received a 
special effusion of the Holy Ghost is very strong, 
for he became henceforth one of the most success¬ 
ful fishers of men that the church in latter times 
has seen. A sketch of his devoted life records 
that “ at one place, Cambuslang, where he went 
from house to house, through the day, and held 
class-meetings at night, seven hundred or more 
were hopefully converted to God.’' 

We have cited these two examples, which might 
be greatly multiplied, to show how the humblest 
instruments when filled with the Spirit are lifted 
to the same plane with the mightiest. 

In being introduced somewhat into the private 
history of eminent revivalists, we have the strong- 



SAL VA TION AND SEALING. 


87 


est confirmation of the view which we are advo¬ 
cating in this chapter. Almost all of them carry 
the cherished secret of some special divine visita¬ 
tion by which they have been empowered for their 
work. There are men upon whom no ordaining 
hands have been laid, whose success might well be 
the envy of the most honored ministers, if envy 
were allowed in such a field. The most painful 
experience of the ordinary pastor is the lack of 
direct results — so many sermons to which there is 
no response, and from which there is no visible 
impression. Say what we will about the educating 
power of the pulpit, there ought to be no such 
fixed gap between ministerial effort and spiritual 
success. Every good workman, whether merchant, 
mechanic, farmer, builder, or student, is able to 
see the definite issues of his toil at the end of the 
year. So ought the “ workman that needeth not 
to be ashamed.” whom the Scriptures commend. 
He should use his sermon as a means to a definite 
end — the converting and sanctifying of souls — 
and should be disappointed if he fails to see this 
end attained. The evangelist labors on this prin¬ 
ciple, and often reaps immense harvests. Has he 
any secret to communicate to pastors ? Sometimes 



88 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


he has. We will refer to one who has been used 
of God to turn thousands to the obedience of the 
faith. In a season of confidential communion with 
brethren and fellow-workers, he narrated this expe¬ 
rience which was taken down from his lips : — 

“ It was in connection with evangelistic services 
which I was conducting in Scotland in the early part 
of* my ministry, that I experienced a marked visitation 
of God’s Spirit. While preaching one evening there 
fell on me suddenly such an overpowering impression 
of the realities of the world to come as I had never 
known before. It seemed as though hell opened to my 
gaze, and I saw the misery of the lost in all its unut¬ 
terable woe, while heaven, at the same time, revealed 
its glories to me so that I apprehended something of 
the unspeakable blessedness of the redeemed of Christ 
in glory. So powerful was the impression that I was 
overcome with weeping, and in spite of all my efforts 
at restraining my emotion was compelled to retire from 
the church. In my room alone for hours the visitation 
continued. I lay there weeping and bewailing before 
the Lord, that I had loved him so little and served him 
so coldly. I was led after awhile to give myself away 
to him in an everlasting covenant. I prayed that he 
would just take me and empty me utterly of self and 
fill me with his Spirit. I gave myself up to him to be 



SAL VA TION AND SEALING. 


89 


despised and rejected and counted a fool for his sake, 
if I might be the means thereby of saving perishing 
souls. Never has the memory of the hour left me; 
never can it leave me.” 

In laboring with this devoted servant of Christ, 
we have always been struck with the fixed rela¬ 
tionship between effort and result in his ministry. 
Oftentimes when the sermon has appeared very 
ill adapted to the end the effect has been greatest; 
and what have seemed, humanly speaking, the 
weakest efforts, have often fallen with unaccount¬ 
able power upon the hearts of the hearers. It 
certainly is a reiteration of a lesson which we are 
very slow to learn, that it is “ not by might, nor 
by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord.” If 
the preacher’s message is made a medium of the 
Spirit, and not a work of art, it will not be strange 
to find the most artless, homely and unstudied 
utterance often carrying the mightiest results. 
John Livingstone, the renowned Scots worthy, 
says: “There is sometimes somewhat in preach¬ 
ing that cannot be ascribed either to matter or 
expression, and cannot be described what it is or 
from whence it cometh, but with a sweet violence 
it pierceth into the heart and affections and comes 



90 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


immediately from the Lord; but if there be any 
way to obtain such a thing it is by the heavenly 
disposition of the speaker.” No wonder at his 
comment on the “sometimes somewhat in preach¬ 
ing,” when the Lord had put on him the signal 
honor of bringing five hundred souls to repentance 
under a single sermon, and that, moreover, an un¬ 
studied and almost unpremeditated effort. But 
here too the secret is an open one, for the closet 
door stands ajar, and behind the pulpit we catch a 
glimpse of an all-night prayer-meeting, in which 
the preacher was a participant — a prayer-meeting 
directed to this single end, of getting the endue- 
ment of power upon him who should plead with 
sinners on the coming day.* Ah, what a mighty 
make-weight in the scale of success is the baptism 
of this invisible, impalpable Spirit of Life ! Sci¬ 
ence has perfected a balance so delicate and sus¬ 
ceptible, that when two pieces of paper hold the 


* “ I never preached ane sermon which I would be earnest to see again in wryte 
but two: the one was on ane Monday after communion at Shotts, and the other 
was on ane Monday after communion at Holywood ; and both these times I had 
spent the whole night before in conference and prayer with some Christians — 
without any more than ordinary preparations. Other wayes my gift was rather 
suited to simple, common people, than to learned and judicious auditors .”—John 
Livingstone, 1630. 




SAL VA TION AND SEALING . 


91 


scales in perfect equipoise, the writing of your 
name upon one will instantly tip the beam and 
bear it down. So it is when the signature of the 
Spirit is put upon the heart by the heavenly seal¬ 
ing. It is a transaction so hidden and so delicate 
that its subject may be quite unconscious of it as 
it is passing. But it has often changed the whole 
poise of one’s life, transforming the weakling into 
a spiritual giant, so that he who has utterly failed 
by the energy of the flesh has gone forth victori¬ 
ous in the power of the Spirit. 

We are inclined to believe that this enduement of 
the Spirit has often been confounded with conver¬ 
sion. in the experience of good men. When we hear 
that Dr. Chalmers, or Legh Richmond, or William 
Haslam preached the gospel several years before 
they were really converted, we seriously question 
the statement, even though these men may have ex¬ 
pressed such an opinion themselves. They had dur¬ 
ing these years honestly believed on the Lord Jesus 
and confessed him with the mouth, and therefore 
we must think, that had they been called out of 
the world they would have been saved. But all 
this time they may have lacked the witness and 
power of the Spirit, and therefore exercised a 



92 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


comparatively barren ministry. The change which 
came to them was so radical and so transforming in 
its effects upon their lives that, knowing nothing of 
two distinct stages in the Christian life, it seemed 
to them like the experience of conversion, whereas 
we judge that the difference in their ministry be¬ 
fore and after this change, was quite like the dif¬ 
ference between the ministry of Peter before the 
day of Pentecost, and after that day. In other 
words, the event from which they dated such a 
change in their spiritual history we conceive to 
have been their enduement by the Spirit with 
power, rather than their conversion. This seems 
to us a much more rational and scriptural explana¬ 
tion of their experience than the view, that during 
all the period before this striking change they were 
lost souls and without part or lot in the salvation 
of Christ. 

We give a single illustration of a transaction 
which we regard as belonging to this class. G. V. 
Wigram was held in great esteem in the body 
known as “ The Brethren ” for his rare gifts and 
remarkable consecration. For several years a 
communicant, and in the judgment of one who 
knew him intimately, “ a quickened soul; ” living 



SAL VA TION AND SEALING. 


93 


morally but without a conscious sense of the pres¬ 
ence of Christ; there fell upon him one evening a 
powerful manifestation of the Spirit. He was 
kneeling at his bedside, absent-mindedly saying 
his prayers, when, he says : 

“ Suddenly there came on my soul a something I had 
never known before. It was as if some One Infinite 
and Almighty, knowing everything, full of the deepest, 
tenderest interest in myself, though uttedy and entirely 
abhorring everything in and connected with me, made 
known to me that he loved myself. My eye saw no 
one , but I knew assuredly that the One whom I knew 
not and had never met, had met me for the first tftne 
and made known to me that we were together. There 
was a light, no sense or faculty my own human nature 
ever knew; there was a presence of what seemed infi¬ 
nite in greatness — something altogether of a class that 
was apart and supreme, and yet at the same time mak¬ 
ing itself known to me in a way that I as a man could 
thoroughly feel, taste and enjoy. The Light made all 
light, Himself withal; but it did not destroy, for it was 
love itself, and I was loved individually by Him. The 
exquisite tenderness and fullness of that love, the way 
it appropriated me myself for Him in whom it all was, 
while the light from which it was inseparable in Him, 
discovered to me the contrast I had been to all that was 



94 


THE TIVO-FOLD LIFE. 


light and love. I wept for a while on my knees, said 
nothing, then got into bed. The next morning’s thought 
was, ‘ Get a Bible.’ I got one and it was thencefor¬ 
ward my hand-book.” * 

This graphic experience we do not dwell upon 
in order to emphasize the marvellous element in 
it—though it was so intense that its subject 
referred to it till his dying day with the deepest 
emotion. The fact on which we would lay special 
stress is that from that hour, this man was utterly 
given up to Christ. He laid his large fortune at 
the feet of Jesus, spending thousands yearly for 
th^ furtherance of the gospel, reserving nothing 
for himself but the pilgrim’s portion, food and 
raiment. His spiritual gift was not that of evan¬ 
gelist, but of teacher, and in this office he greatly 
enriched all that sat under his instruction. His 
ministry, says a co-laborer, “like the precious 
stones on Aaron’s breastplate, sparkled with the 
varied beauties and glories of the person of the 
living and glorified Christ.” And considering that 
this ministry, with its extraordinary consecration 
and light, dated from that single bed-side experi- 


The Ministry of G. V. Wigram, Introduction. 




SAL VA TION AND SEALING . 


95 


ence when he knelt in tears before the Lord, it 
will not seem strange if we scrutinize that experi¬ 
ence to discover if possible its true interpretation. 
However, let us say distinctly, and let us under¬ 
score the statement, that we have not brought for¬ 
ward any of these remarkable spiritual exercises 
as models for other Christians to copy. Only, it is 
needful sometimes in setting forth an obscure truth, 
to print our argument in illuminated text in order 
to win attention for it. Afterwards it will be 
easily read in common type. That is to say, it 
often requires the most vivid and powerful experi¬ 
ences to impress us with the reality of a certain ^ 
doctrine; which, after we have once accepted, we 
can discover in its most ordinary manifestations. 
We believe that scores in our times have experi¬ 
enced the sealing of the Holy Spirit who can speak 
of no extraordinary emotion connected with the 
event. They have received the power from on 
high and the witness within, and yet they have 
hardly known when or where these came to them. 
What we would urge is that there is an anointing 
of the Spirit for service to which many of us are 
strangers, and that it is our privilege to seek it 
with all the heart. How large a proportion of pro- 



96 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


fessed Christians, if they were asked, would have 
to confess that they have never led a soul to Christ. 
And yet they are true believers and will doubtless 
be saved at last — saved but unrewarded ; fitted to 
“enter into life ” but not to enter into the highest 
“joy of the Lord ; ” redeemed through the finish¬ 
ed work of Christ, but having no finished work of 
their own, concerning which the Master can say, 
“ Well done, good and faithful servant.” 

In view of the fearful possibility of being found 
in such a condition, we trust that our readers, in¬ 
stead of turning aside from the teaching of this 
chapter, and perchance condemning it as high or 
mystical or visionary, may be moved to pray with 
an open and hungry heart that if there be any 
deeper work and any mightier communication of 
the Spirit than they have known, it may be 
granted unto them. And we are most deeply 
assured, that if in all humility and self-surrender 
such a blessing be sought it will be found. Ecsta- 
cies and raptures the Lord may not choose to give 
us, nor are these needed. But his Holy Spirit’s 
fullness and power he will give us if we reverently 
and patiently seek for it. 










y. 


SONSHIP AND COMMUNION. 



“ Sonship being founded on resurrection, stands con¬ 
nected with perfect justification — perfect righteous¬ 
ness— perfect freedom from everything that could in 
anywise be against us. God could not have us in His 
presence with sin upon us. The Father could not have 
the prodigal at his table with the rags of the far country 
upon him. He could fall on his neck and kiss him in 
those rags. It was worthy and beautifully characteris¬ 
tic of his grace to do; but then to seat him at the ta¬ 
ble in the rags would never do. The grace that brought 
the father out to the prodigal reigns through the righte¬ 
ousness which brought the prodigal in to his father. It 
would not have been grace, had the father waited for 
the son to deck himself in robes of his own providing; 
it would not have been righteousness to bring him in, 
in his rags; but both grace and righteousness shone 
forth in all their respective brightness and beauty when 
the father went out and fell on the prodigal’s neck, and 
yet did not give him a seat at the table until he was 
clad and decked in a manner suited to that happy posi¬ 
tion. God in Christ has stooped to the very lowest 
point of man’s moral condition, that by stooping He 
might raise man to the very highest point of blessed¬ 
ness in fellowship with Himself,” — C. H. M. 


V. 


SONSHIP AND COMMUNION. 

I T is all-important that we should understand 
the exact relationship of these two facts. 
Sonship is not acquired through communion with 
God ; but communion with God is the issue and 
fruit of sonship. So many persons reverse the 
divine order, and think to secure a standing with 
the Father by the intensity of their spiritual exer¬ 
cises, and the consistency of their Christian walk, 
that it is needful to make this point very clear. 
“ But as many as received Him to them gave he 
power to become the sons of God, even to them 
that believe on his name.” * “ For ye are all the 

children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.” f Thus 
speaks the Scripture, and thus are we taught that 
it is faith in Christ, and not feeling in ourselves, 
that constitutes us the sons of God. “ Whosoever 
believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God/'f 


* John i: 14. 


t Gal. 3 : 26. 


$ 1 John 5: 1. 



100 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


This relation of sonship being once established, 
through our personal faith, it becomes a fixed 
fact. Communion varies; sonship is unchange¬ 
able ; communion is a thing of degrees; son- 
ship is absolute. The most exalted saint is no 
more a child of God, than the weakest and most 
imperfect believer. The difference between the 
s/ two is a difference of fellowship, and not a differ¬ 
ence of birthright. Our acceptance with God does 
not lie along a sliding scale of frames and feelings, 
but is grounded on the unchangeable life and love 
of Him who is “ the same yesterday, and to-day > 
and forever.” Those who savingly believe there¬ 
fore are the sons of God without condition, and all 
stand on exactly the same plane of acceptance and 
privilege in the household of faith. A child may 
be disobedient, but he does not thereby cease to 
be his father’s son ; and a Christian may lose his 
joy and his assurance, but that does not cancel 
his birthright and throw him back into spiritual 
orphanage. But we must add, lest we should seem 
to lean towards Antinomian license, that there will 
be a vast difference in the rewards of the children 
of God, both as to their present joy and their 
future glory; and this difference will depend upon 



SONSHIP AND COMMUNION. 


IOI 


the fellowship and faithfulness which they main¬ 
tain in their walk with God. 

Let us clearly discern the exact connection of 
these two facts therefore, and lay a strenuous em¬ 
phasis on each. “ Behold what manner of love 
the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should 
be called the sons of God.” * If sons of God we \ 
certainly have the indestructible life of God. And 
so in spite of the plausibility of the arguments for 
the contrary view, we must still hold fast to the 
doctrine of “the perseverance of the saintsor 
as it might be more justly expressed, of the perse- V' 
verance of the Saviour. Not because faith has 
the tenacity to hold fast to the end ; but because 
faith makes us partakers of the eternal life which 
holds us fast unto the end. For how can the eter¬ 
nal life perish, and if that life has become our life 
how can we perish ? Adoption may be annulled 
but birth cannot be; and hence those who have 
been begotten of God cannot die so long as God 
lives. Is there such a thing as becoming unborn 
for those who have been newborn ? “ I give unto 

them eternal life ; and they shall never perish, 
neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand,” 


i John 3: 1. 






102 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


is Christ’s promise. And incarnation and regen¬ 
eration are the two bonds by which he has secured 
this promise. For through the first he has become 
partaker of our human nature, and carried it up 
into heaven ; and through the second we have 
been made partakers of the divine nature, which, 
could we be lost, we should have to carry down 
into hell. * 

But next to the gift of sonship, which calls out 
the apostle’s exultant thanksgiving, is that of fel¬ 
lowship. “ And truly our fellowship is with the 
Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.” In son- 
ship we have life; in fellowship we have more 
abundant life; in the one we get our place as 
“ accepted in the Beloved; ” in the other we get 
our power as anointed with the Holy Ghost; on 
the one depends our salvation; on the other de¬ 
pends our sanctification. Now communion or fel- 


* Tauler, the mystic, tells of a poor peasant from whom he gained deep instruc¬ 
tion in spiritual things. To his searching question, “ But what would you say if 
God should damn you ? ” “ If God would damn me ? ” said the poor man ; “ ver¬ 
ily if he would use me so hardly, I have two arms to embrace; the one whereof is 
a deep humility by which I am united to his holy humanity; the other is faith and 
charity which joins me to his Divinity, by which I would embrace him in such 
sort that he should be constrained to descend with me into hell, and I had rather 
without comparison be in hell with God, than without him in Paradise.” 

Tauler t 1290 — 1361 . 




SO NS HIP AND COMMUNION 


103 


lowship implies a reciprocal intercourse with God. 
By it we not only abide in Christ, but Christ 
abides in us; we not only ask, but we receive; we 
not only give ourselves to God, but God imparts 
himself to us. And the Holy Spirit is the medium 
of this communion. As the atmosphere stands 
between us and the sun, the transparent element 
through which we behold its brightness, and 
through which its warmth is transmitted to us, so 
the Holy Ghost mediates between us and Christ. 
“He shall take of mine and shall show it unto you,"* 
says Jesus. Here is one side — the communica¬ 
tion of the life and love and joy of the Lord to us. 
“The Spirit maketh intercession for us.”f Here 
is the other side — the communication of our 
needs and sorrows, our praises and confessions to 
the Lord. And both these ideas are involved in 
full communion with Christ. 

To establish this fellowship we make use, first 
of all, of the Scriptures which are the inspired 
organ of the Holy Ghost. And it is very impor¬ 
tant for us to see that the most direct and intelli¬ 
gible means of communion is the word of God. 
Meditation, contemplation, aspiration—these are 


John 16: 15. 


t Rom. 8: 26. 




104 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE . 


very vague and unsatisfactory exercises when at¬ 
tempted alone. Thought, like the vine, needs a 
\ trellis on which to climb, in order to mount up 
into the sunlight. We require God’s word as a 
support and uplift in order that we may think 
Goa’s thoughts after him. And we are sure that 
the most substantial and most satisfactory inter¬ 
course which we can have with the Lord is attain¬ 
ed in this way. 

Rev. William Haslam, the well-known evangel¬ 
ist, in referring to that remarkable crisis in his 
ministry when he gained the power of the Holy 
Ghost as he had never known it before, says : — 

“ A book came into my hands which interested me 
greatly. This I read and re-read, and made an abstract 
of it. It was the ‘Life of Adelaide Newton.’ What 
struck me in it so much was to find that this lady was 
able to hold spiritual communion with God by means of a 
Bible only. Is it possible, I thought, to hold such close 
communion with the Lord apart from the church and 
her ministrations ? I do not hesitate to say that this 
was the means under God of stripping off some remains 
of my grave clothes, and enabling me to walk in spirit¬ 
ual liberty.” * 


From Death Unto Life, p. 59. 




SONSN/P AND COMMUNION. 


105 


The lady to whom he refers was one of the ex¬ 
cellent of the earth, in whom we may believe the 
Lord delighted. Her expositions of Hebrews and 
of the Song of Solomon are among the best speci¬ 
mens of devotional study with which we are ac¬ 
quainted. Here we find affection and meditation 
climbing up to the Lord along his promises and »/ 
precepts. And as we read, we learn the true 
secret of communion. Unsustained contemplation 
soon tires ; but that which mounts up to God along 
—the scala sancta of Scripture renews its strength 
at every step. It has such secure foothold that it 
never falters or grows dizzy; and thus it escapes 
the peril of fanaticism and pious dreaming. “ For 
as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are 
my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts 
than your thoughts ,” * saith the Lord. We cannot 
reach Gcd’s thoughts therefore by meditation or 
reflection alone. We may tarry all night in the 
fields like Jacob, but unless we know the Scrip- 
^ tures we have not the ladder whose top reaches 
unto heaven, along which our thoughts like angels 
may ascend and descend. 

And next to God’s recorded thoughts, the high- 


* Isaiah 4: 8. 





10 6 THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 

est aid to communion will be found in the spiritual 

_^ contemplations of his saints. Each believer needs 

the help of every other in order to any measure of 
apprehension of God. “ That ye may be able to 
comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, 
and length and depth and height, and to know the 
love of Christ which passeth knowledge,” * is the 
fervent prayer of the apostle. Each son of God 
has some vision and apprehension of the Father’s 
will and glory which another may miss. And we 
require the sum of all Christian knowledge to help 
us toward the beginning of that which “ passeth 
knowledge.” 

It has sometimes struck us as being one of the 
saddest fruits of schism in the church, that it has 
. begotten a kind of covetousness of truth and love. 
Christians hold their favorite doctrines as a sort 
of spiritual monopoly ; loving truth for the distinc¬ 
tion it may give to them, as the miser loves his 
gold, instead of loving it for the blessing and joy 
it may bring to others when imparted. ^To find 
the highest help in communion we must be willing 
to give all we have without stint ;7and to take from 
all who have acquired any riches of truth, however 


Eph. 3: j$. 






SONSHIP AND COMMUNION. 


107 


remote and out of ecclesiastical fellowship with us 
they may be. We make good our suggestion by 
borrowing from one whom we must own as a true 
saint, though found within the pale of an apostate 
body. Fenelon, shut up within the bounds of a 
narrow and exclusive church, deprecated what he 
calls “ the avarice of prayer,” and not less the 
avarice of communion. With a most comprehen¬ 
sive charity he exclaims : — 

“ Oh ! how blessed it were to see * all goods in com¬ 
mon,’ both of mind and of body, and that every one no 
longer regarded his thought, his opinions, his science, 
his light, his virtues, his noble sentiments, as his own. 
It is thus that the saints in heaven have all in God, and 
nothing for themselves alone. Theirs is a beatitude 
infinite and common to all, of which the ebb and flow 
cause the abundance and satiety of ail the blessed ; 
'each receiving his measure, each giving out all he has 
v received. If men here below entered into this poverty 
of spirit and this community of spiritual gifts, we should 
see all disputes and all schisms come to an end. We 
cannot reform the church except by thus reforming our¬ 
selves ; then all would be only one spirit; the spirit of 
love and truth would be the soul of the members of the 
body of the church, and would re-unite them in closest 



io8 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


bonds. It would be a commencement of the new crea¬ 
tion ; of the paradise reserved for the world to come.” 

Probably it is the very highest attainment in 
prayer to gain real and sensible communications 
from the Lord. How few of us know very much 
of such experiences! We ask, and having soon 
exhausted the list of our requests, we give over 
asking. We know little of that importunate “ I 
will not let thee go except thou bless me.” And 
when we read, for example, of Bishop Andrewes 
spending the greater part of five hours every day ^ 
in prayer and devotion ; or of John Welsh who 
thought that day ill spent which did not witness 
eight or ten hours of closet communion, we pon- J 
der with amazement, if not with incredulity ; and 
we ask ourselves how such prolonged praying could 
be possible without falling into an endless routine 
of vain repetition. So far as we can know, that 
which these men sought was communion. They 
were not merely begging something of God, and 
persisting in their suit, till they should overcome 
his reluctance. They were seeking contact, fellow¬ 
ship, oneness of mind and will with the Lord ; 
they were gazing into the face of the Holy One, 



SO NS HIP AND COMMUNION 


109 


that so the divine transformation into his likness 
might go on ; they were striving by patient endur¬ 
ance to apprehend that for which they were appre¬ 
hended of Christ Jesus ; laying hold of God and 
giving themselves to be laid hold of by God. It 
is good for us to search for the secret of such com¬ 
munion, or at least to be quickened by it to a more 
prayerful life. How our careless intercessions are 
rebuked by a passage like this from the life of that 
excellent Covenanter, Robert Bruce. Says John 
Livingstone : — 

“ Upon one occasion I went to Edinburgh to see him 
in company with the tutor of Bonnington. When we 
called at eight in the morning, he told us he was not 
inclined for company; and on being urged to tell us 
the cause, he answered that when he went to bed he 
had a good measure of the Lord’s presence, but that he 
had wrestled about an hour or two before we came , and 
had not yet got access ;* and so we left him.” 

Here is a bit of spiritual history so antique and 
strange, that we almost need an interpreter to 
translate it into the dialect of common experience. 
How many Christians have prayed for years with- 


* Scots Worthies, p. 159. 




no 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


out ever having striven to get “access,” or even 
known that such a thing were possible. 

A communion, we have observed, in which some¬ 
thing is imparted from God to us as well as some¬ 
thing asked of God by us, should be constantly 
sought. Is it possible for the Lord, through the 
Holy Spirit, to make direct and intelligible com¬ 
munications to our spirits, instructing us in regard 
to duty, and clearly enlightening us respecting his 
will ? Certainly, Christians who have sought to 
read God’s handwriting from the tablet of con¬ 
sciousness, have often been deceived and led into 
grievous mistakes. This fact should be admitted 
and marked for our warning and admonition, as 
should also the supplementary fact that the Holy 
Scriptures are the great and principal manual of 
instructions for Christian duty. But there are 
emergencies when we need more minute and spe¬ 
cific directions, than could possibly be contained in 
so general a book. And certainly the Holy Spirit 
does give these to those who wait upon him. But 
how ? We should say generally by a providential 
guidance. If we seek submissively and humbly to 
be directed by the Spirit we shall be soled,though 
we may not know the way beforehand. That is to 




SONSIZ/P A,YD COMMUNION. 


Ill 


say, the Spirit within the believer will rather in¬ 
cline him to go in the right way, than say distinct¬ 
ly to his inner ear “ this is the way, walk ye in it.” 
The author of the Theologia Germanica states this 
idea truly though somewhat extremely, when he 
says that one who is led by the Spirit is “so pos¬ 
sessed by the Spirit of God that he does not know 
what he doeth or leaveth undone, and hath no 
power over himself; but the will and spirit of God 
has the mastery over him, and works and does 
and leaves undone with Him and by him as God 
would.” Besides this we must believe that to 
obedient and humble souls the Master does some¬ 
times speak in distinct tones, through the Spirit. 
But it is only to “ a mind inwardly retired before 
the Lord ” that this privilege is given; it is only ears 
made divinely sensitive by long communion with 
Christ, that can catch his still small voice as it 
speaks in the depths of the heart. 

For instruction on this point let us refer to a 
single teacher. Catherine of Siena, that pearl of 
piety and purity shining so conspicuously among 
the corruption of the 14th century, has left us 
several chapters of her “Dialogue” with God. 
She explains that the Saviour did not communicate 



112 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


with her by words, but by impressions so distinct 
and unquestionable that she was able afterwards 
to write them down. To those who question the 
reality of such communications her biographer 
well says : “ Go and make the attempt to live a 

life of prayer such as she lived, and then, and then 
only, can you have any shadow of a right or any 
power to judge of this soul’s dealings with God.” 
Reading the story of her saintly life, of her conse¬ 
cration so simple and so free from the supersti¬ 
tions of her age, we are inclined to think that God 
would be as likely to speak to her as to any whom 
we could name. And interposing again a warning 
against trusting to mere impressions, we may still 
ask : if “ the Spirit said to Philip go near and join 
thyself to this chariot; ” if “ the Spirit said separ¬ 
ate me Saul and Barnabas,” why may not the same 
Spirit speak to Christians to-day who are living 
under the same dispensation ? 

' Catherine had at one time spent three days in a 
solitary retreat, praying for a greater fullness and 
joy of the divine presence. But instead of this, 
it seemed as though all the legions of darkness 
had been let loose in her soul, filling her with 
blasphemous thoughts and evil suggestions. The 



SONSNIP AND COMMUNION. 113 

battle waxed desperate, and she was sore pressed 
with fear, till at last the Saviour appeared to her 
and scattered the hosts of darkness and gave her 
deliverance : — 

“ Now a great light seemed to descend from above, 
filling the place where she kneeled with heavenly biight- 
ness. The devils fled and the Lord Jesus conversed 
with her. Catherine asked him, ‘Lord, where wert 
thou when my heart was so tormented?* ‘I was in 
/ thy heart,’ he replied. 4 O Lord, thou art everlasting 
truth,’ she replied, 4 and I humbly bow before thy 
word ; but how can I believe that thou wast in my heart 
when it was filled with such detestable thoughts?’ 

4 Did these thoughts give thee pleasure or pain ? ’ asked 
the Lord. 4 An exceeding pain and sadness,’ she re¬ 
plied; to whom the Lord— 4 Thou wast in woe and 
sadness because I was in the midst of thy heart. My 
| presence it was which rendered those thoughts insup¬ 
portable to thee. Thou didst strive to repel them, be¬ 
cause they filled thee with horror, and because thou 
didst not succeed thy spirit was bowed down with sor¬ 
row. When the period I had determined for the dura¬ 
tion of the combat had elapsed, I sent forth the beams 
of my light, and the shades of hell were dispelled, be¬ 
cause they cannot resist that light.’ ” * 


* Catherine 0/ Siena, 1347-1380, 





THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


114 


Here is a most vital lesson for believers. For 
we have not only a vivid illustration of the tender 
and gracious intercourse, which is possible between 
the saint and his Saviour, but we have also a salu¬ 
tary warning. The hour of holiest communion is 
not unlikely to be made the “ hour and power of 
darkness,” by the incursions of the Evil Spirit. 
The sleepy and stupid Christian, baptized with 
“ the spirit that now worketh in the children of 
disobedience,” and living in fellowship with the 
God of this world, will not be greatly liable to 
t . assaults from the evil one. It is those who strive 
for the highest consecration, who will encounter 
the sharpest temptations. How instructive a les¬ 
son for us it is, that the first chapter in the Sa¬ 
viour’s experience after his baptism by the Holy 
Ghost opens with these words, “ And Jesus being 
full of the Holy Ghost was led by the Spirit into 
the wilderness, being forty days tempted by the 
devil."* Let not the Christian be surprised there¬ 
fore to find his still hour disturbed by intruding 
thoughts and impudent suggestions of evil. The 
closet is the Thermopylae of the kingdom of 
heaven; and he who with prayer and fasting at- 


* Luke 4: 2. 






SONSHIP AND COMMUNION. 115 

tempts to take the kingdom by force, will find the 
spirits of evil massed there in strong array to resist 
him. Bunyan never penned words of deeper sig¬ 
nificance than when he wrote, “Then I saw that\ 
there was a way to hell even from the gates of 
heaven.” But he whom we meet in the closet is 
faithful, “who will not suffer us to be tempted 
above that we are able ; but with the temptation 
will also make a way of escape, that we may be 
able to bear it.” * 

With the closest access to God, will come the 
joy of the Lord, filling and overflowing the soul. 
This is the true reward and fruition of earnest 
communion,—a reward which is not to be sought 
as an end, but which will be certain to follow as a 
result. How difficult it is to persuade even 
Christians that joy in God is the only enduring 
and really substantial happiness. Many who truly 
love the Lord plead their right to temper and sea¬ 
son their Christian exercises by worldly entertain¬ 
ment. We urge no ascetic rule here; only we 
wish to remind the Christian that the love of God 
is the only love that can never be inordinate — 
the only love in which there can be no hurtful 


* i Cor. 10: 13. 




ii 6 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE . 


excess. In this respect it stands in total and un¬ 
changeable contrast to worldly affection. Read 
this confession of the brilliant Madame de Mainte- 
non, which she makes to a friend in the acme of 
her splendor : “ Do you not see that I am dying 

with melancholy, in a height of fortune which once 
my imagination could scarce have conceived ? I 
have been young and beautiful, have had a high 
relish of pleasure, and have been the universal 
object of love. In a more advanced age I have 
spent years in intellectual pleasures; I have at 
last risen to favor; but I protest to you , my dear 
madame , that every one of these conditions leaves in 
the mind a dismal vacuity .” Turn from this beau¬ 
tiful court favorite to another French lady of the 
same period. Madame Guyon was the most 
despised and persecuted woman of her time — 
hunted, derided, imprisoned, exiled. But writing 
of her spiritual joy at this period, she says : — 

“ The love of God occupied my heart so constantly and 
sti'ongly that it was very difficult for me to think of any¬ 
thing else. So much was my soul absorbed in God, 
that my eyes and ears seemed to close of themselves to 
outward objects, and to leave the soul to the exclu¬ 
sive influence of the inward attraction. This immer- 



SONSHIP AND COMMUNION. 117 

sion in God so absorbed all things, that it seemed to 
place all things in a new position relating to God. I 
could behold naught out of God; I beheld all things in 
Him.” 

Let us mark what the Scriptures say concerning 
those who are sealed — “ Ourselves also which 
have the first fruits of the Spirit.”* “Sealed 6 
with that Holy Spirit of promise which is the earn¬ 
est of our inheritance.” f This signifies that those 
who are filled with the Spirit already have fore¬ 
tastes of heaven, prelibations of the “pleasures 
forevermore ” which are at the Lord’s right hand. 

If so, we need not speculate concerning the bles¬ 
sedness of the redeemed. He who has the hand¬ 
ful of first fruits, knows what the harvest will be 
just as well as he will know when the grain has 
been reaped and gathered into the garner. The 
hearts of the redeemed above and below beat with 
the same impulse, and keep time to the same 
heavenly harmony. Why stand ye gazing up into 
heaven therefore, — speculating with curious won¬ 
der concerning the bliss of the glorified ? Put 
your ear to the heart of the saint in full commu- 


* Rom 8: 23. 


t Eph. 1 : 13. 




1 18 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE . 


nion with God, if you would know what the beatific 
joy is. Heaven is perfectly miniatured, wherever 
you find a soul in perfect fellowship with the 
Lord. 

We have spoken in another chapter of the gra¬ 
cious visitations of the Spirit enjoyed by President 
Edwards. These were attended by experiences of 
the most seraphic delight — experiences in which 
the weight of glory was such as to cause him “ to 
break forth into a kind of loud weeping,” while he 
contemplated the character of God. Let us hear 
his description of this divine enjoyment : — 

“ I found from time to time an inward sweetness that 
would carry me away in my contemplations. This I 
know not how to express otherwise than as a calm, 
sweet abstraction of the soul from all the concerns of 
the world; and sometimes a kind of vision or fixed 
ideas and imaginations, of being alone in the moun¬ 
tains, or some solitary wilderness, far from all mankind, 
sweetly conversing with Christ, and wrapped and swal¬ 
lowed up in God.” * 

But let it be carefully observed that these exer¬ 
cises came from no idle dreaming, no luxurious 


* Edwards’ Works, Vol. I, p. 16. 




SONSHIP AND COMMUNION 


II 9 


spiritual reveries. It was, he tells us, while read¬ 
ing the Scriptures that his soul so mounted up; 
and it was while his eye was fixed on God that his 
heart was kindled with holy delight. Men of this 
world talk about enjoying themselves ; the believ¬ 
er’s happiness is most intense when he is out of 
himself, so that he can “ joy in God through our 
Lord Jesus Christ.” Edwards has given an ex¬ 
tended and glowing narrative of high religious joy 
in another person with whom he was intimate; 
and who, though no name is mentioned, has been 
ascertained since his death to have been his own 
wife. We can give only a few snatches from this 
wonderful record of blessedness. If we wished 
for a living commentary upon John Howe’s lofty 
discourse on “Delighting in God,” we should 
select this. It is the theologian’s argument set 
to heart-music; and it is especially interesting as 
being the manifest fruit of earnest consecration, 
and definite sealing by the Spirit. “ Desire is love 
in motion; love is desire at rest” says Howe. 
Here was a soul who desired God above all other 
things. This desire expressed itself in the most 
searching self-surrender; and the delight which 
followed was this desire finding rest in its supreme 




120 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


object. These exercises begun, he says, “near 
three years ago in a great increase, upon an extra¬ 
ordinary self-dedication and renunciation of the 
world.” The person had been formerly subject to 
great unsteadiness in grace and frequent melan¬ 
choly. But, says the narrator : — 

“ Since that resignation spoken of before, made near 
three years ago, everything of that nature seems to be 
overcome and crushed by the power of faith and trust 
in God and resignation to him. The person has re¬ 
mained in a constant uninterrupted rest and humble 
joy in God, and assurance of his favor, without one 
hour’s melancholy or darkness from that day to this. 

. . . These things have been attended with a con¬ 

stant sweet peace and calm and serenity of soul, with¬ 
out any cloud to interrupt it; a continual rejoicing in 
all the works of God’s hands — the works of nature and 
God’s daily works all appearing with a sweet smile upon 
them ; a wonderful access to God by prayer, as it were 
seeing him, and sensibly and immediately conversing 
with him, as much oftentimes as if Christ were here on 
earth, sitting on a visible throne, to be approached to 
and conversed with ; frequent, plain, sensible and imme¬ 
diate answers to prayer; all tears wiped away; all for¬ 
mer troubles and sorrows of life forgotten, and all sor- 



SONSHIP AND COMMUNION. 


121 


row and sighing fled away, excepting grief for past sins, 
and for remaining corruption, and that Christ is loved 
no more and that God is no more honored in the world, 
and a compassionate grief towards fellow creatures; a 
daily sensible doing and suffering everything for God, 
for a long time past, eating for* God and sleeping for 
God, and bearing pain and trouble for God, and doing 
all as the service of love, and so doing it with a con¬ 
tinual, uninterrupted cheerfulness, peace and joy.” * 

We have given but a brief extract from this 
incomparable narrative. The reader must study 
the whole, if he would learn how sober, how or¬ 
derly, how balanced with the most practical ser¬ 
vice all this exalted communion was. 

We have no need to seek for any higher alti¬ 
tudes of spiritual delight than those here pictured. 
And yet to show the wonderful manifestations 
which God sometimes makes to his obedient chil¬ 
dren we may go still further. The experience of 
Mrs. Edwards seems to have been a continuous 
one, and to have constituted when attained an 
habitual state rather than an exceptional trans¬ 
port. But there are loftier peaks looking down 
upon the most elevated table lands of commu- 


* Edwards’ Works, Vol. Ill, pp. 302-306. 






122 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


nion — spiritual Pisgahs and Tabors into which 
God sometimes calls up his servants that he may 
show them his glory. It will not harm us to listen 
to the favored few who have been summoned up 
thither, though we may have to discourage others 
from attempting to scale such heights. That sub¬ 
lime experience of the apostle Paul, when he was 
so entranced that he knew not “ whether in the 
body or out of the body,” and when he “ heard 
unspeakable words which it is not lawful to utter,” 
was not an attainment, but a rapture. He evi¬ 
dently did not climb to it, but was lifted to it, by a 
sovereign and gracious act of the Lord. He was 
“caught tip to the third heaven,” he did not go up; 
and from this eminent height he could stretch out 
no beckoning hand to his brethren below. But 
even these anomalous experiences have their les¬ 
son, especially to an age which is so inclined to 
discredit all supernatural intervention. To those 
who are blind and cannot see afar off, they open 
glimpses of the glory to be revealed, which may 
at least give a momentary uplift to the eyes that 
are cast down. 

John Flavel was by temperament and habit as 
remote from enthusiasm as President Edwards. 



SONSHIP AND COMMUNION. 


123 


But here is a passage which he gives from the ex¬ 
perience of “ a minister,” well understood to have 
been himself. He was alone on a journey, his 
mind greatly occupied with self-examination and 
prayer. He thus describes what befell him : — 

“ In all that day’s journey he neither met, overtook 
or was overtaken by any. Thus going on his way, his 
thoughts began to swell and rise higher and higher, like 
the waters in Ezekiel’s vision, till at last they became 
an overwhelming flood. Such was the intention of his 
mind, such the ravishing tastes of heavenly joys, and 
such the full assurance of his interest therein, that he 
utterly lost the sight and sense of this world, and all 
the concerns thereof; and for some hours he knew no 
more where he was than if he had been in a deep sleep 
upon his bed.” Arriving in great exhaustion at a cer¬ 
tain spring, “ he sat down and washed, earnestly desir¬ 
ing if it was God’s pleasure that this might be his part¬ 
ing-place from this world. Death had the most amiable 
face in his eye that ever he beheld, except the face of 
Jesus Christ, which made it so . and he does not re¬ 
member, though he believed himself dying, that he ever 
thought of his dear wife or children or any earthly con¬ 
cernment. On reaching his inn, the influence still con¬ 
tinued, banishing sleep. Still, still the joy of the Lord 
overflowed him, and he seemed to be an inhabitant of 



124 


THE TWO FOLD LIFE. 


the other world. But within a few hours he was sensi¬ 
ble of the ebbing of the tide, and before night, though 
there was a heavenly serenity and sweet peace upon his 
spirit, which continued long with him, yet the transports 
of joy were over, and the fine edge of his delight blunt¬ 
ed. He many years after called that day one of the days 
of heaven, and professed he understood more of the life of 
heaven by it than by ail the books he ever read, or dis¬ 
courses he ever entertained about it.” * 

Not less exalted is an experience of Pascal, 
which he describes in a paper which he long car¬ 
ried about his person. Dr. Alexander calls it 
“ one of the most seraphic productions of human 
language.” Indeed the visitation described seems 
to have been so unutterable as to defy full expres¬ 
sion. It is joy and rapture breaking through the 
bounds of speech arid expressing itself in tears. 
So resistless is the tide of love and ecstacy that he 
can only describe it in such broken phrases as, 
joy — joy—tears — tears ; “ joie — joie — pleurs ! 
pleurs ! ” 

But these illustrations are sufficient to set before 
us the exalted possibilities of communion with the 
Lord. The degree of our joy and fellowship will 


* Flavel’s Works, Vol. I, p. 501. 




SONSHIP AND COMMUNION. 


125 


vary; but whatever the degree let us be assured, 
that such intimate contact with the Lord is of 
priceless value. ( Communion with the Sinless One 
is the only sure method of excommunicating sinJ 
Gazing into the face of Christ, and beholding the 
light of the knowledge of the glory of God which 
shines there, will surely disenchant our hearts 
from worldly objects. “ Ephraim shall say, what 
have I to do any more with idols ? I have heard 
Him and observed Him.” * Dannecker, the Ger¬ 
man sculptor, spent eight years in producing a 
face of Christ; and at last wrought out one in 
which the emotions of love and sorrow were so 
perfectly blended that beholders wept as they 
looked upon it. Subsequently being solicited to 
employ his great talent on a statue of Venus, he 
replied, “ After gazing so long into the face of 
Christ, think you that I can now turn my atten¬ 
tion to a heathen goddess ? ” Here is the true 
secret of weanedness from worldly idols, “the 
expulsive power of a new affection.” 

“ I have heard the voice of Jesus, 

Tell me not of aught beside; 

I have seen the face of Jesus, 

All my soul is satisfied." 


* Hosea 14; 6. 




126 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE 


Separation from the world, and separation unto 
Christ, and unto the goodly fellowship of all 
saints in all ages who are in Christ, this is the 
fruit of true communion. 

“ O Almighty God, who hast knit together thine 
elect in one communion and fellowship in the 
mystical body of thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord ; 
grant us grace so to follow thy blessed saints in 
all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to 
those unspeakable joys, which thou hast prepared 
for those who unfeignedly love thee; through 
Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen” 



vr. 


RIGHTEOUSNESS AND HOLINESS. 


“The great marvel of the gospel, the great triumph 
of redemption is that God can declare to be righteous 
those who personally are not righteous; that He can 
justify the sinner not by deeming him a law-keeper, but 
even while He judges him as a law-breaker. It is not 
that being justified by the life of Christ on earth, we are 
saved by His blood-shedding, but that being now justi¬ 
fied by His blood we shall be saved from wrath through 
Him as 7iow rise7i from the dead” — Robe7't A7iderso7i, 


“True sanctification is the result of the soul’s union 
with the Holy Jesus, the first and immediate receptacle 
of the sanctifying Spirit; out of whose fulness His 
members do by virtue of their union with Him receive 
sanctifying influence. The other is the mere product 
of the man’s own spirit, which, whatever it has or seems 
to have of the matter of true holiness, yet does not arise 
from the supernatural principles or the high aims and 
ends thereof, for, as it comes from self so it runs into the 
dead sea of self again, and lies as void of true holiness 
as nature/doth of grace. They who have this spurious 
holiness/are like common boatmen who serve them¬ 
selves with their own oars, whereas the ship bound for 
Immanuel’s land sails by the blowings of the Spirit.” — 
Fourfold State , Thomas Bosto7i . ' 



VI. 


RIGHTEOUSNESS AND HOLINESS. 

R IGHTEOUSNESS comes before Holiness 
in the order of redemption, the one being 
imputed to us on the ground of our faith, and the 
other being imparted to us by the operation of the 
Holy Spirit. The way in which we are made 
righteous is told in the following Scripture: “But ♦ 
to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that 
justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for 
righteo2isness .” * It is a hard saying for the natu¬ 
ral man to receive; and even the Christian has 
sometimes staggered at it, and tried to mitigate 
its seeming unreasonableness by arguing that it is 
by Christ’s imparted righteousness, and not by his 
imputed righteousness, that we are justified. This 
would mean that we are accepted with God on the 
ground of personal character, while the Scripture 
declares that we are “ accepted in the Beloved; ” 


* Rom. 4: 5. 



130 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


this theory would require us to be made actually 
righteous through Christ before we could be justi¬ 
fied, while the Bible declares that Christ “ is made 
unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctifica¬ 
tion and redemption * In other words, we under¬ 
stand the word of God to teach that the sinner is 
justified on the ground of Christ’s righteousness 
reckoned to him, and that being thus justified he 
is gradually sanctified by the righteousness of 
Christ communicated to him. 

We can see then the distinction between right¬ 
eousness and holiness, for there must be a dis¬ 
tinction, since the new man is declared to be cre¬ 
ated “in righteousness and true holiness.” The 
one is put upon the sinner when he believes, so 
that by it he is “ justified from all things; ” the 
other is begotten within him as he continues to 
believe, till he is sanctified wholly. The sunshine 
first clothes the dead grass of the field with a gar¬ 
ment of light, covering and surrounding it with its 
warmth ; and then little by little the greenness 
and bloom and beauty are evoked out of the dry 
stock, as the light is transmuted into life. Here 


i Cor. i: 30. 




RIG HTE 0 US NESS AND HOLINESS . 


131 


is a true symbol of justification and sanctification. 
Does the doctrine of imputation stumble you ? 
But “ if God so clothe the grass of the field which 
to-day is and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall 
he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? ” 
Righteousness with which God covers himself as 
with a garment, he lays upon the sinner as the 
first gift of his pardoning grace to cover and en¬ 
wrap him, and then little by little, under the influ¬ 
ences of the Spirit, “ the beauty of holiness ” is 
wrought out from his heart in purity and gentle¬ 
ness and meekness and love, till “ Solomon in all 
his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” ^Jus¬ 
tification gives us our title to heaven ; sanctifica¬ 
tion our fitness for heaven. J 

The duty of practical holiness we believe needs 
to be especially and strongly urged in these days. 
Too many Christians are culpably content with 
being saved, and take very little thought concern¬ 
ing the duty of being sanctified. And if any are 
moved to the cultivation of holiness, they are quite 
likely to be frightened away from its pursuit by 
the exaggerations and fanaticisms with which the 
doctrine has been burdened in our times. Indeed 
to how many ears does the expression “ practical 



132 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


holiness ” suggest at once the idea of perfectionism. 
“ The degenerate plant of a strange vine,” we 
hold this to be. The strange vine is the doctrine 
that regeneration is “a change of nature,” instead 
^ of the communication of the divine nature. If 
human nature can be bettered, why may it not be 
sanctified ? And then, why may not perfection in 
' the flesh be attained ? But because we believe 
that the carnal man is incapable of becoming sub¬ 
ject to God’s law, we hold that the believer will 
never attain perfection until he has put off this 
tabernacle. It is true even now that the Christian 
is not in the flesh ; then it will be true that the 
flesh is not in him, but the Spirit of the Lord will 
fill him completely and sanctify him wholly. 

But does not God command perfection— “ Be ye 
therefore perfect , even as your Father which is in 
heaven is perfect” Does He not require and 
enjoin holiness, “Be ye holy for I am holy” ? f 
And does He command of us what we cannot per¬ 
form ? Looking at the question on its human side, 
it is enough for us to answer that no man except 
our sinless Immanuel has ever performed it; and 


* Matt. 5: 48. 


t 1 Pet. 1: 16. 




RIGHTEOUSNESS AND HOLINESS. 


133 


looking at it on the divine side, it is clear that if 
God commands anything he must command per¬ 
fection— that if he were to fix his standard a 
single degree short of this he would not be God. 
But looking at both sides, and endeavoring to 
reconcile God’s claims with man’s capacity, we 
observe two facts, viz., that in the life and teach¬ 
ing of Jesus Christ we have the standard of sin¬ 
less perfection set up, “beauteous as heaven, and 
alas, as remote ; ” that above it is the inscription, 
“ My little children, these things write I unto you 
that ye sin not and below it is the superscrip¬ 
tion, “And if any man sin , we have an Advocate 
with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”* 
Perfection is God’s perpetual commandment, since 
he can require no less; pardon is his perpetual 
provision, since we can attain so little. 

Now holiness will be very imperfectly under¬ 
stood, if studied as a mere abstract attribute. We 
can learn most concerning its nature and its secret 
by seeing its manifestations in the lives of those 
saints who have most signally exhibited it. To 
take up once more our figure of the light, we know 


1 John 2: x. 





134 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


that a sunbeam can only be truly understood as it 
is refracted by passing through a prism, and so 
unbraided into its manifold colors. The pure white 
ray of the divine holiness in like manner must 
pass through human lives, and be analyzed and 
reproduced in human virtues, before it can be 
really apprehended by us. And so we glide from 
theology into biography — from the idea of holi¬ 
ness to a consideration of its personal manifesta¬ 
tions in the saints of God. 

If we were to follow strict chronological order 
in bringing forward our examples of holy living, 
we should begin with such names as Bernard and 
Francis of Assisi and Thomas a. Kempis. All 
praise would we give to these devoted souls — the 
more worthy of our commendation because their 
light shone amid gross darkness and corruption. 
If the great Arctic explorer was moved to tears at 
finding a solitary violet blooming beneath an ice¬ 
berg, one burst of beautiful life amid universal 
death, our hearts are no less affected at beholding 
these true saints living so singly for God amid the 
desolation of Papal corruption and apostacy. And 
yet in all of them there are traces of asceticism 
and superstition which render them imperfect ex- 



RIGHTEOUSNESS AND HOLINESS. 


135 


emplars in many respects. Their piety needs to 
be translated into our Protestant dialect before it 
can be quite adapted to our imitation ; and there 
is much of morbid, fantastic saintship which needs 
to be eliminated from it to render it practical. 

Of Protestant saints who have lived excellently 
for God, where could we find a more illustrious 
example than in the character of Samuel Ruther¬ 
ford, of whom his biographer truly says, that “ he 
sought for holiness as unceasingly and eagerly as 
other men seek for pardon and peace ” ? “ Upon 

the bells of the horses i holiness unto the Lord ’ ” 
saith the prophet; and as this holy man mounts 
up to God in his chariot of praise, we seem to hear 
every note in the silver music of pure worship — 
love, joy, hope, and obedience, and all mingling 
their strains together in the ‘Holy, Holy, Lord 
God Almighty.’ ” We doubt if such words of 
divine affection were ever penned by uninspired 
fingers, as he employs in setting forth the excel¬ 
lency of Immanuel. Peruse them, oh soul that 
would be kindled with divine ardor when your love 
has long waxed cold. The sweetness of Paradise 
is in them, the joy of Beulah thrills in their every 
accent. Listen: — 



136 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


“ Brother, I may from new experience speak of Christ 
to you. Oh, if ye saw in him what I see. A river of 
God’s unseen joys has flowed from bank to brae over 
my soul since I parted with you. I urge upon you 
communion with Christ, a growing communion. There 
are curtains to be drawn aside in Christ that we never 
saw, and new foldings of love in Him. I despair that 
ever I shall win to the far end of that love, there are so 
many plies in it. Therefore dig deep and sweat and 
labor and take pains for him; and set by as much time 
in the day for him as you can; he will be won with 
labor.” * 

Consecration is the true fruit of holy fellowship 
with the Lord. Hence with each kindling of af¬ 
fection, and with each deeper view of the heart of 
Christ, comes the longing for utter self-devote- 
ment. Tired of making his own way and ordering 
his own plans, he says : — 

“Alas my misguiding and childish trafficking with 
that matchless Pearl, that Heaven’s Jewel, the Jewel of 


* Rutherford's Letters , 1624-1661. “ Rutherford’s Letters is one of my 

classics. Were truth the beam, I have no doubt, that if Homer and Virgil and 
Horace, and all that the world has agreed to idolize, were weighed against that 
book, they would be lighter than vani:y.” — Cecil. 

“ Hold off the Bible, such a book the world never saw.” — Baxter. 





RIGHTEOUSNESS AND HOLINESS. 137 


the Father’s delights hath put me to great loss. Oh 
that he would take a loan of me, and my stock, and put 
his name in all my bonds and serve himself heir to the 
poor mean portion which I have, and be accountable 
for the talent himself! Gladly would I put Christ into 
my room to guide all; and let me be but a servant to 
run errands, and act by his directions — let me be his 
interdicted heir.” 

To an unusual degree the heart of this good man 
was drawn out towards the coming of the King in 
his glory. His experience in this respect set a 
deep seal upon the apostle’s words, “We know 
that when He shall appear we shall be like Him, 
for we shall see Him as He is. And every one that 
hath this hope in Him , purifieth himself even as He 
is pure.” * The heart is as certainly clarified 
under the influence of this blessed anticipation, as 
linen is whitened out under the shining of the sun. 
Holiness is woven into the affections, while love 
keeps up the sweet interchange between the soul 
longing for sinlessness, and him who is to “appear 
a second time without sin unto salvation.” Prac¬ 
tice this much neglected apostolic grace, oh reader; 
train faith’s eye to “ the habit of looking upward 


i John 3: 3. 




138 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


all the day, and drawing down beams from the 
reconciled countenance.” Waiting for the Son of 
God from heaven fixes our position on earth, and 
gives us that true separateness and unworldliness 
which are so essential to a holy life. He who has 
learned to say, “ For our citizenship is in heaven, 
from whence we look for a Saviour,” * has an unan¬ 
swerable reason for not investing his affections or 
laying up his treasures on the earth. This blessed 
hope has kindled the hearts of saints to the high¬ 
est fervors, and touched the lyres of poets with the 
loftiest strains, f It took such hold of Ruther¬ 
ford that it made him live and act ever as an 
inhabitant of heaven, rather than as a citizen of 
earth. Hear his heart’s longings after the King 
of glory : — 

“ Watch but a little, and, ere long, the skies shall 
rend, and that fair, lovely person, Jesus, will come in 

* Phil. 3 : 20. 

f “I looke for Thee, my lovelyle Lord, therefore 
For Thee I wayte, for Thee I tarrye stylle. 

Mine eies doe long to gaze on Thee idy fyll; 

For Thee I watche, for Thee I prie and pore, 

My soul for Thee attendeth evermore; 

My soule doth thirste to take Thee at a taste, 

My soule desires with Thee for to be plast. ” 

George Gascoigne , 1547. 




RIGHTEOUSNESS AND HOLINESS. 


139 


the clouds, fraught and loaded with glory. O, when 
shall we meet ? Oh, how long is it to the dawning of 
the marriage day? O, sweet Lord Jesus, take wide 
steps ! O, my Lord, come over the mountains at one 
stride ! O, my beloved, flee like a roe, or a young hart, 
on the mountains of separation. Oh, that He would 
fold the heavens together like an old cloak, and shovel 
time and days out of the way, and make ready in haste 
the Lamb’s wife for her husband. Since He looked 
upon me my heart is not mine own, he hath run away 
to heaven with it.”* 

No holiday sanctity, no holiness of the folded 
hands and dreamy heart was that of “ Seraphic 
Rutherford.” He longed after lost souls with the 
heart of Christ, and labored for their salvation 
night and day. If he did not say with the apostle, 
“ I could wish that myself were accursed from 
Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to 
the flesh,” he was constantly declaring that his joy 
and rejoicing would be doubled in every soul he 
might bring to Christ. To his dear flock of An- 
worth he writes : “ My witness is in heaven, your 
heaven would be two heavens to me, and your sal¬ 
vation two salvations.” Most excellent pattern of 


* Letters, p. 94, 276. 




140 


THE TWO FOLD LIFE. 


godliness! How our hearts are stirred to emu¬ 
late his example ! 

If we cross from Scotland to France, and study 
a life which partly overlapped that which we have 
just considered, we find a type of consecration 
quite opposite in its character. Rutherford’s piety 
was ecstatic ; Madame Guyon’s was mystical i the 
' r ir ' 'he Christ upon the throne 



other went into self to 


Christ within the depths of consciousness^/ Since 
the Scriptures use the words, “ Christ in yon the 
hope of glory ,” we may be assured that the latter 
method is not altogether erroneous, though from 
our want of clear vision it may expose us to seri¬ 
ous perils. It is a natural experience that souls 
should find relief in going in an opposite direction 
from that wherein they have found trouble and sor¬ 
row. And we wonder not that after this earnest 
spirit had been occupied so long and so painfully 
with the outward sacraments and symbols of Christ, 
it should have found glad tidings in the words of a 
pious confessor, “ Accustom yourself to seek God in 
yom heart , and you will not fail to find Him A It 
would have been false and useless advice to an 
unrenewed soul. But there is every evidence that 



RIGHTEOUSNESS AND HOLINESS. 


141 


this earnest woman had already appropriated the 
work of Christ for her on the cross and on the 
throne, and been saved by it. It was the witness 
and indwelling of the Spirit, which she longed for 
and yet hardly knew it, and now found; and as in 
the parallel experience of John Wesley, it was this 
which henceforth furnished the secret of abound¬ 
ing joy, and abounding service. What a change 
was thus wrought, we learn from her own words: — 

“ These words were to me like the stroke of a dart 
which pierced my heart asunder. I felt at this instant 
deeply wounded with the love of God — a wound so 
delightful that I desired it might never be healed. 
These words brought into my heart what I had been 
seeking so many years, or rather they made me discover 
what was there, and which I did not enjoy for want of 
knowing it. Oh my Lord ! Thou wast in my heart and 
demanded only the turning of my mind inward, to 
make me feel thy presence. Oh infinite Goodness ! 
Thou wast so near, and I ran hither and thither seek¬ 
ing Thee and yet found Thee not. My life was a bur¬ 
den to me, and my happiness was within myself. I 
was poor in the midst of riches, and ready to perish 
with hunger near a table plentifully spread and a con¬ 
tinual feast. Oh Beauty ancient and new! Why have 



142 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


I known Thee so late ! Alas ! I sought Thee where Thou 
wast not, and did not seek Thee where Thou wast. It 
was for want of understanding these words of thy gos¬ 
pel, ‘ The kingdom of God cometh not with observa¬ 
tion, neither shall they say Lo ! here, or lof there! for 
behold the kingdom of God is within you.* This I now 
experienced since Thou didst become my King and my 
heart thy kingdom, where Thou dost reign a Sovereign 
and doest all Thy will.” * 

The fruit of this divine baptism is what it will 
especially interest us to seek. And this was imme¬ 
diate and blessed. Will the Spirit that cleanses us 
from sinfulness also keep us from sinning ? is a 
question which is asked with the most painful 
solicitude by the tempted, oft defeated and well 
nigh despairing believer. The Scriptures certainly 
give some very strong and explicit promises on this 
point. “ Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil 
the lust of the flesh," f says the apostle. And 
surely there are those who have had glimpses of 
fulfilment given to them as they have tested this 
declaration; who have known what it is to be 
lifted for the time being above the entanglements 

* Life of Madame Guyott, by Prof. T. C. Upham, D. D., pp. 52, 53. 

Gal 5: 16. 




RIGHTEOUSNESS AND HOLINESS. 143 

of “fleshly lusts which war against the soul.” If 
they have not gained full victory, they have at least 
enjoyed “the truce of God” for a season. There 
has been a cessation of hostilities, a divine re¬ 
straint laid upon carnal desires, so that they have 
been for a time quite subjected to the law of the 
Spirit. Alas ! that such experiences, if they have 
come, have so often been but transient exercises, 
not a permanent condition. A sudden misstep 
and we have stumbled and fallen ; and ceasing to 
walk in the Spirit, the flesh has again triumphed. 
If we could only walk always in the Spirit! Oh, 
but there is the difficulty. “In Him is no sin; 
whosoever abideth in Him sinneth not”* writes the 
apostle John. If we were in such unbroken com¬ 
munion with Him that there were an unceasing 
flow of the divine life through our souls, sin would 
be overborne, quenched and destroyed. This ex¬ 
perience of perpetual walking with God and per¬ 
petual abiding in Christ, is the one into which the 
Holy Ghost is seeking to bring the believer. And 
it is certainly reasonable to expect that a marked 
enduement of the Holy Ghost would issue in defi¬ 
nite experiences of overcoming. Hear what this 


i John 3: 6. 





144 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


pious woman says of that which followed this 
baptism of the Spirit: — 

“ I slept not all that night, because thy love, O .my 
God, flowed in me like delicious oil, and burned as a 
fire which was going to destroy all that was left of self 
in an instant. I was all on a sudden so altered, that I 
was hardly to be known either by myself or others. I 
found no more those troublesome faults or that reluctance to 
duty which formerly characterized me. They all disap¬ 
peared, consumed like chaff i?i a great fire. Nothing was 
now more easy than the practice of prayer. Hours 
passed away like moments, while I could hardly do any¬ 
thing else but pray. The fervency of my love allowed 
me no intermission. It was a prayer of rejoicing and 
of possession, wherein the taste of God was so great, 
so pure, unblended and uninterrupted, that it drew and 
absorbed the powers of the soul into profound recol¬ 
lection, a state of confiding, affectionate rest in God, 
existing without intellectual effort. For I now had no 
sight but Jesus Christ alone.” 

Here is a bright glimpse of the overcoming 
power of the Spirit. * 

* St. Theresa of Spain uses very similar language in describing her own expe¬ 
rience. “ From the time that the Lord granted me this grace I was saved from 
all my faults and my miseries. I had power given me to become indeed free.” 




RIGHTEOUSNESS AND HOLINESS. 


145 


We can only judge of the divine side of one’s 
consecration by observing the human side. And 
when we think of the penetrating, subduing, hal¬ 
lowing character of this woman’s piety, begetting 
hatred in some, of course, but conquering so many 
others and bringing them into obedience to the 
cross of Christ, it goes far to certify the truth of 
the above strong statements. Friars, priests, 
nuns, men of the world, women of fashion, nobles 
and peasants were drawn to her by a strange 
charm, and that charm lay evidently in her pres¬ 
ence more than in her words. “The unmarried 
woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she 
may be holy both in body and in spirit ,” says the 
Scripture. And hundreds of Madame Guyon’s 
virgin sisters were immured in convents, seeking 
thus by retired and hidden communion to become 
holy unto the Lord. But here was one fulfilling 
the duties of wife and mother, and yet surpassing 
them all in her exalted devotion. Like “the holy 
women in old time who trusted in God, adorning 
themselves with the ornament of a meek and quiet 
spirit, being in subjection unto their own hus¬ 
bands,” this woman lived and labored and suffered 
for Christ. She has been called a Mystic and a 



146 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


Quietist, because she advocated absorption into 
God, and the stillness and passiveness of the hu¬ 
man will that it may be yielded entirely to the 
Divine ; and theologians have said that mysticism 
destroys obedience by paralyzing freedom of 
choice. But life is better than philosophy, dem¬ 
onstration of experience than the deductions of 
reason. And here was one who in her life shone 
like a seraph and obeyed like an angel; and how¬ 
ever we may reason, her own generation and every 
succeeding generation, has recognized the saint’s 
halo about her head. Amid the shadows of super¬ 
stition which rested so heavily on her times, she is 
the one bright figure, who like the angel standing 
in the sun, is not only marvellously illumined 
herself, but causes many others to walk in her 
reflected radiance. * 


* If she made statements now and then which seem to verge too near an 
assumption of holiness', let us read them in the light of her last will and testament, 
made just before her death. It contains this beautiful clause: 

“ It is to Thee, OLord God! that I owe all things; and it is to Thee that I 
now surrender up all that I am. Do with me, O my God! whatsoever thou pleas- 
est. To Thee in an act of irrevocable donation, I give up both my body and my 
soul to be disposed of according to thy will. Thou seeest my nakedness and 
misery without Thee. Thou knowest that there is nothing in heaven or on earth 
that I desire but Thee alone. Within thy hands, O God! I leave my soul, not 
relying for my salvation on any good that is in me, but solely on thy mercies 
and the merits and sufferings of my Lord Jesus Christ 

--— — Id., Vol. II., p. 346. 




RIGHTEOUSNESS AND HOLINESS. 


14 7 


The voice of the Spirit is the same in all lands 
and in all communions ; and how remarkable it is 
that in the heart of John Woolman, the Quaker 
preacher, we should find the clearest echo of the 
teaching of Madame Guyon, the Catholic saint. 
How shall we describe what we feel as we read the 
journal of this blessed man ? We dare not endorse 
the verdict of one who calls him “ the man who in 
all the centuries since the advent of Christ, lived 
nearest to the divine pattern.” It is impossible to 
give such solitary preeminence to any disciple of 
Christ. We have called him above all whom we 
have known, a disciple of the Holy Ghost; and 
the most worthy exemplar of “the love of the 
Spirit.” Like many to whom we have referred in 
this volume, he had had his special divine visitation 
ir^ which he learned his calling of God. Was it a 
reverie or a dream which fell on him in deep sleep ? 
We care not to inquire since we introduce it from 
no craving for the marvellous, but only for the 
gracious lesson which it teaches. We give his 
story, abridged in a few unimportant particu¬ 
lars : — 

“26th of 8th month, 1772. 

“ In a time of sickness a little more than two years 



148 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


and a half ago, I was brought so near the gates of death 

that I forgot my name.In this state I remained 

several hours. I then heard a soft, melodious voice, 
more pure and harmonious than any I heard with my 
ears before. I believed it was the voice of an angel 
who spoke to the other angels — the words were, ‘John 
Woolman is dead.’ I soon remembered that I was once 
John Woolman, and being assured that I was alive in 
the body I greatly wondered what the heavenly voice 
could mean. I believed beyond doubting that it was 
the voice of an holy angel, but as yet it was a mystery 

to me.As I lay for some time, I at length felt a 

divine power prepare my voice that I could speak, and 
I said, * I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; 
yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life which 
I now live I live by the faith of the Son of God, who 
loved me and gave himself for me.’ Then the mystery 
was opened and I perceived there was joy in heaven 
over a sinner who had repented, and that the language, 
‘John Woolman is dead,’ meant no more than the death 
of my own will.” * 

He seems to have had a clear conviction of what 
this signified, and he was “ not disobedient to the 
heavenly vision.” For we find him entering at 


* Journal, p. 264. 







RIGHTEOUSNESS AND HOLINESS 


149 


once upon services which only a * crucified will 
would have accepted. At the tables of the rich 
he bore testimony against luxurious living, warn¬ 
ing self-indulgent Christians against pride of ap¬ 
parel, and pride of position, and telling them even 
with weeping that by such things they became 
enemies of the cross of Christ. With a tender¬ 
ness which few could wholly resist, he pleaded the 
cause of the slave against his master, and again 
and again succeeded in unlocking the bondman’s 
fetters. In trials and tears and hardships he 
wrought continually till his course was finished, 
acknowledging that “ this state in which every 
motion from the selfish spirit yieldeth to pure lovefi 
had been opened before him “ as a pearl to seek 
after.” Here, if we will look at it, is a high exam¬ 
ple of practical holiness — not the sanctity of the 
cloister or the cell, but that which touched every 
condition of sin and wrong with its gentle rebuke 
and its tearful sympathy. And in all these cir¬ 
cumstances the purest communion with God was 
enjoyed. Renouncing wealth he found “ that in¬ 
ward poverty under which the mind is preserved 
in a watchful, tender state, feeling for the mind of 
the Holy Leader doing that “which subjecteth 



THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


150 


the will of the creature,” he was “ herein united 
with the suffering seed and found inward sweet¬ 
ness in these mortifying labors.” Most worthy 
example for us all was John Woolman. A saint'N 
who never “ sainted himself; ” a servant of God 
who plunged into the world, that like his Master 
he might go about doing good, instead of hiding 
in some sacred retreat, or immuring himself in the 
cloister of his own heart in order to get good, 
“Be ye holy in all manner of living”* writes the 
apostle Peter; and this character furnishes a most 
impressive exposition of the precept. In all man¬ 
ner of life he wrought with holy service; in do¬ 
mestic circles seeking to supplant the maxims of 
selfishness by the law of Christ; in politics medi¬ 
ating between labor and capital, poverty and 
wealth ; in philanthropy putting his shoulder under 
the workingman’s yoke and thrusting his own 
hand through the slave’s chain as bound with him. 
How much the world needs to be reminded of 
such half-forgotten lives ! How the church needs 
to be admonished by them that saintliness is 
< something more than a pale contemplative senti- 








RIGHTEOUSNESS AND HOLINESS. I 5 I 

ment; that it has been and can still be as manly, 
robust, and practical as the most strenuous moral¬ 
ist could wish. 

Now holiness is an emanation from God ; some¬ 
thing of the divine nature absorbed and reappear¬ 
ing in the lives of the good. But the method of 
appropriating it varies not a little, different souls 
finding it each in the different Persons of the Holy 
Trinity. In Edwards, we behold the saint dwell¬ 
ing on this bare attribute of the Almighty till it 
becomes inwoven with his spirit — saying “ the 
holiness of God has always appeared to me the 
loveliest of all his attributes.” In Rutherford, we 
see one gazing in adoring affection upon the person 
of Jesus Christ, while he is “ changed into the 
same image from glory to glory.” In Woolman, 
we witness one with eye turned in upon the Spirit 
dwelling in the heart, and through “ a mind 
clothed with inward prayer” receiving his light 
and love and purity till he is deeply assimilated to 
Him. “ But all these worketh that one and the 
self-same Spirit, dividing to every man severally 
as he will.” 

We judge it true that holiness is that grace 
which renders us most like to God. “After God 



152 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


created in righteousness and true holiness,” says 
the Scripture. Is such a sentiment as humility 
v possible with God ? we may ask then, since it is 
such an essential element in the holiness of man. 
Looking at God as a Trinity we see that it is, and 
that it is very manifestly revealed. The Son is 
^ ever humbling himself before the Father. “ The 
words that I speak unto you, I speak not of myself: 
but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the 
works.” * The Holy Spirit in like manner is ever 
subject unto the Son. “ He shall not speak of him¬ 
self, . . . for he shall receive of mine and shall 
show it unto you.” f Oh blessed example for us, 
that even between the persons of the Godhead 
there is that hol}( deference and reverent subjec- 
tion,ywhich makes each to exalt the other and not 
Himself. May we study the lesson deeply. 

And this leads us to borrow still another ray of 
light on this subject from a well approved life — 
that of the beloved Scotch preacher, Robert Murray 
McCheyne— “ beloved for the father’s sakes,” we 
might say, since more than any other in latter 
times he revived among his nation the spirit and 
power of the old Covenanters. He sought for 


* John 14: 10. 


t John 16: 14. 





RIGHTEOUSNESS AND HOLINESS. 


153 


holiness as for hid treasures, and he gained it in 
such manner that his life produced a kind of awe 
and anger among formal Christians, so that once 
even they took up stones to stone him. But as in 
the beginning, while of the unbelieving “no man 
durst join himself” to him, believers in great num¬ 
bers were through him added to the church. 

He recognized more distinctly than any with 
whom we are acquainted, that “ the highway of 
holiness ” can only be entered through the valley 
\l of humiliation. So intensely did he realize this 
truth that he was constantly watching lest his 
striving for high attainments might become a 
snare to him, and that he should be proud of his 
humility and conscious of his consecration. He 
writes : — 

“ Now remember that Moses wist not that the skin 
of his face shown. Looking at our own shining face is 
the bane of the spiritual life and of the ministry. O 
for closest communion with God, till soul and body— 
head, face and heart — shine with divine brilliancy. 
But O for a holy ignorance of our shining.”* 

Is not here a serious suggestion for such as may 


* Memoir of McCheyne — Bonar, p. 1x8. 





154 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


have been tempted to make professions of holi¬ 
ness ? The most fatal temptation, we venture to 
say, that can be presented to the Christian heart! 
The light is clear when we look through it at the 
object of our vision, and are not sensible of its 
presence ; but if there be something in it of bright 
vapor or cloudy smoke which attracts our atten¬ 
tion, it is evident enough that it is no longer clear. 
And in like manner it is plain that when our holi¬ 
ness or our humilijty, instead of being the transpa¬ 
rent medium of our communion with Christ, at¬ 
tract our attention and remark, they greatly lack 
in genuineness and simplicity. Alas! what an 
omnipresent failing is pride! It is certain to 
perch on every high attainment like a bird of ill 
omen to defile it with its presence. Spiritual suc¬ 
cesses and holy acquirements are no more exempt 
from its intrusions than temporal. Hear Mc- 
Cheyne again : — 

“July 8, 1836. 

“ To-day missed some fine opportunities of speaking 
a word for Christ. The Lord saw I would have spoken 
as much for my own honor as his, and therefore shut 
my mouth. ( I see a man cannot be a faithful minister 
until he preach Christ for Christ's sake- j—until he gives 



RIGHTEOUSNESS AND HOLINESS. 155 

up striving to attract people to himself and seeks only 
to attract them to Christ. Lord, give me this !” * 

This is close dealing. It is self-examination 
cutting to the quick. Would that every minister 
of the gospel might write these italicised words 
upon his frontlet, or those other words of good 
Philip Henry, “ Preach Christ crucified in a ctuci 
ficd style.” In no way probably are our efforts 
after holiness so thwarted, as by the intrusion of 
self-seeking and ambition into those places which 
should be filled with Christ only.f 

As Michael Angelo wore a lamp on his cap to 
prevent his own shadow from being thrown upon 
the picture which he was painting, so the Christ¬ 
ian minister and servant needs to have the candle 
of the Spirit always burning in his heart, lest the 
reflection of self and self-glorying may fall upon 
his work to darken and defile it. To show how 
genuine a trait of holiness this self-repression is, 
we recall the words of Edward Payson touching 
the same point : — 

* Memoir, p. 44. 

t We call up John Woolman again to quote his artless words on this point. 

" I was jealous of myself lest I should say anything to make my testimony look 
agreeable, to that mind in the people which is not in pure obedience to the cross 
0/ Christ'.** 





156 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


“April i, 1806. 

“ Spiritual pride. By how many artifices does it 
contrive to show itself ! If at any time I am favored 
with clearer discoveries of my natural and acquired 
depravity and hatefulness in the sight of God, and am 
enabled to mourn over it, in comes spiritual pride with, 
Aye, this is something like. This is holy mourning for 

sin; this is true humility .What a proof that the 

heart is the natural soil of pride, when it thus con¬ 
trives to gather strength from the very exercises which 
one would think must destroy it utterly.”* 

Let any who may have fallen into the fatal snare 
of claiming to be holy ponder these words. Here 

were two servants of Christ who are believed to 

v \ 

have approached as near the throne as any in 
recent times. But what conviction and self-abhor¬ 
rence did this approach beget.f As the light of 
the knowledge of the glory of God intensified, the 
shadows of humiliation deepened more and more. 


* Payson’s Memoir, p. 46. 

t “ From henceforth let us resemble the seraphim, who cover their faces with 
two of their wings as expressing their humiliation ; with two others their feet as 
concealing their obedient steps from every creature-eye but their own; and with 
the remaining two flying, to execute the will of God, while they cry one to anoth¬ 
er, ‘ Holy, holy holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory. ’ ” 

— A. Roc hat. 





RIGHTEOUSNESS AND HOLINESS. 


15 7 


As it was with Edwards, who in the same sen¬ 
tence wherein he says, that God appeared to him 
as “ an infinite fountain of divine glory and sweet¬ 
ness, being full and sufficient to satisfy the soul, 
pouring forth itself in sweet communications like 
the sun in its glory,” adds also, “ My wickedness 
appeared to me perfectly ineffable and swallowing up 
all thought and imagination like an infinite deluge 
or mountains over my head so it was preeminently 
with these servants of the Lord. In Payson we 
have an extraordinary example of the results of 
spiritual culture. We may call him the Protestant 
ascetic. In his determined pursuit of holiness he \ 
mortified his body to the last degree of endurance. 
He prolonged his fasts till his friends begged and 
importuned him to stay his severities, lest his 
health should give way. And his bodily rigors 
were only the shadow of his spiritual. He hunted 
sin through all its retreats, unmasked it, chastised 
it, slew it with a determination which gave no 
quarter. We cannot commend his immoderate 
asceticism, by which his health was impaired and 
his days shortened. We think also that as in the 
case of Brainerd, there was a sombreness in his 
piety which is not calculated to win men to a love 



i5« 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE . 


of consecration. But oh, for a few present illus¬ 
trations of such holiness as his ! How it amazed 
and dazzled men by its excess of brightness. The 
anger of the worldling dashed madly against it; 
the reproach of Christ fell where the image of 
Christ was so conspicuously fixed. But the holy 
life triumphed forever when dissolution set its 
stamp upon his brow. Behold him in the cham¬ 
ber of death. His white face is turned calmly 
up toward heaven ; his pastoral hands are folded 
across his breast; on his burial shroud is pinned 
a paper bearing this inscription : “ Remember the 
words which I spake unto you while I was yet 
present with you” And as the hushed throng 
passes by for the last look, it is like the multitude 
returning from the cross, smiting on the breast 
and each saying to himself, “truly this was a 
righteous man.” Payson in his death chamber at 
Portland, McCheyne, borne from St. Peter’s in 
Dundee, while the sorrowing multitudes present a 
scene of lamentation like the mourning over the 
good king Josiah — let us ponder these two scenes, 
and be persuaded chat with all it has lost, our poor 
world has yet an instinct which honors holiness, 
and will at last lay upon it its tribute of approval. 



RIGHTEOUSNESS AND HOLINESS. 


159 


Would now that from all these examples of holy 
living we might gain a strong incitement to fol¬ 
low in the same way. For holiness is the true 
birth-trait and characteristic of the sons of God. 
If we are “ partakers of the divine nature ” we 
must exhibit the essential mark of that nature, 
which is holiness, or, as the Scripture says, we 
must be made u partakers of his holiness .” “This 
justifies us to be the sons of God, when He hath 
taken a slip from His purity, and engrafted it in 
our spirits; He can never own us for His children 
without His mark, the stamp of holiness. Our 
spiritual extraction from Him is but pretended un¬ 
less we do things worthy of so illustrious a birth y 
and becoming the honor of so great a Father. 
What evidence can we else have of a childlike 
love to God, since the proper act of love is to imi¬ 
tate the object of our affections ? ” * 

As holiness gives the strongest evidence and 
testimony that we are of God and from God as to 
our spiritual origin, so it furnishes the best war¬ 
rant of our going to God when our course is fin¬ 
ished. “ Holiness without which no man shall 
see the Lord,” says the Scripture. Here or here- 


* Stephen Charnock, 1628-1680. 





i6o 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


after, it is impossible that the soul should have 
any clear vision of God, except through the medi¬ 
um of that purity which is the most essential ele¬ 
ment of his nature. “ In thy light shall we see 
light ” — and holiness is the light with which God 
clothes himself as with a garment. The more of 
this we have, the more of present communion shall 
we enjoy ; the nearer we shall come to the spirit 
of the Most Holy, and the more shall we know of 
Him whose ways are unsearchable. And so like¬ 
wise in the future. For in the world to come what 
would it profit us that heaven’s gates were open to 
us unless heaven’s garment were upon us ? Were 
we to be placed there in our native impurity we 
should be unspeakably miserable. The eye of 
God, under whose gaze all pure spirits rest in 
holy delight, would bring naught but torment to 
us. We should wish only to escape from his 
presence, and to find in the rocks and mountains a 
hiding-place from Him that sitteth on the throne 
and from the Lamb forever. 

Therefore with all self denial and communion, 
with all putting off of the old man and putting on 
of the new man, let us seek to be conformed to 
the image of God, “ to the end he may establish 




RIGHTEOUSNESS AND HOLINESS. 


161 


our hearts unblamable in holiness before God, even 
our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ 
with all his saints.” 

























VII. 


PEACE WITH GOD , AND THE PEACE OF 

GOD. 


“ Being justified by "faith, we have peace with God; 
— that is, we enter into the state of peace immediately. 
He is a rich man who has a thousand acres of corn in 
the ground, as well as he who has so much in his barn 
or the money in his purse. So Christians have rest and 
peace in the seed of it, when they have it not in the 
fruit; they have it in the promise when they have it not 
in the possession. All believers have the promise of 
rest and peace, and we know that the truth and faith¬ 
fulness of God stand engaged to make good every line 
and word of the promise to them. So that though they 
have not a full and clear actual sense and feeting of 
rest, they are, nevertheless, by faith come into the state 
of rest.” — Flavel. 


“ The peace of God is that with which God Himself 
is at peace.” — Augustine . 



VII. 


PEACE WITH GOD AND THE PEACE OF 
GOD. 

EACE with God is ours by our simple 



X acceptance of it through faith.. Christ 
Jesus “having made peace through the blood of 
his cross,” our reconciliation with the Father is 
already accomplished. Faith has only to accept 
it and rest in it as a part of the Redeemer’s fin¬ 
ished work. Here is a matter of fact, not a mat¬ 
ter of feeling. Faith does not create anything 
or change anything; it simply apprehends what 
is and counts it true. 


“ The lightning’s flash did not create 
The lovely prospect it revealed; 


It only showed the real state 

Of what the darkness had concealed.” 


“ O Lord, open thou mine eyes, that I may 
behold wondrous things out of thy law.” The 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


1 66 


wondrous things are there already — atonement, 
redemption, peace — all these are accomplished 
realities, standing for their support alone in the 
cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. We only need 
sight to behold them, and a believing trust to rest 
in them. When after a foreign war our nation 
had sent ambassadors abroad to treat with the foe 
and they had returned, only the one word “Peace” 
was shouted out from the ship that brought them 
into harbor, and in a few hours all the city was 
thrilling with joyful congratulations.* It was the 
truth that a reconciliation had been effected that 
brought this happy peace of mind to the people ; 
it was not their peace of mind that brought the 
reconciliation. In other words, fact supplied the 
ground for feeling, and not feeling for fact. 

“ Therefore being justified by faith we have 
peace with God.” The faith which rests on Him 
who “is our Peace;” which trusts in Him who 
has “ slain the enmity, so making peace; ” which 
credits Him who “came and preachedpeace” f — 
this it is which brings a true sense of reconcile¬ 
ment to God. In other words, it is Christ’s work 


Memoir of Francis Wayland, p. 38. 

t Eph. 2: 14 17. 




PEACE WITH GOD AND THE PEACE OF GOD. 1 67 


for us that gives us peace with God, and not 
Christ’s work in us. Talk we about making peace 
with God! That we cannot do, and are not re¬ 
quired to do, since the Lord has done it for us 
already. 

“ Blessed are the Peace-makers, for they shall 
be called the sons of God.” Here as elsewhere 
our Lord Jesus, the strong Son of God, has the 
highest beatitude. He is the great Peace-maker, 
mighty to save because a partaker of God’s almigh- 
tiness, and therefore alone of all the sons of men 
able to accept God’s challenge, “Let him take 
hold of my strength that he may make peace with 
me, and he shall make peace with me.” * So then 
our peace with God rests solidly and solely upon 
the finished work of Christ. 

The Peace of God is quite another matter, de¬ 
pending for its reality on the work of the Holy 
Spirit within us. This is an inward experience, as 
the other was an outward fact. “ Let the peace 
of God rule in your hearts,” f says the apostle. 
The holy calm in which God dwells — without 
fear, without disquiet, without forebodings — can 
be so imparted to our souls, and by the Spirit of 


* Isaiah 27: 5. 


t Col S: is 




168 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE . 


the Lord so translated into our personal experi¬ 
ence that it shall become as truly ours as it is his. 
This is the soul’s inward millenium, enjoyed while 
we are yet in the militant condition. Just as our 
Master said, “ These things have I spoken unto 
you that in me ye might have peace ; in the world 
ye shall have tribulation It is God’s calm 
amidst the earthly tumult enabling its possessor to 
enjoy “the most quiet and peaceful liberty, being 
uplifted above all fear and agitation of mind con¬ 
cerning death or hell, or any other things which 
might happen to the soul either in time or in eter¬ 
nity.” f “ My peace I give unto you, not as the 
world giveth give I unto you.” The world endeav¬ 
ors to effect an outward quiet ; Christ gives an 
inward quiet; the one seeks rest from conflict, 
the other gives rest in conflict. “ Thou wilt keep 
him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on 
thee, because he trusteth in thee.” $ As the 
ship’s chronometer maintains its stable rest and 
poise amid all the heaving and agitations of the 
vessel, because stayed upon the solid globe, its 
double bearings releasing it from the influence of 

* John 16: 33, 14, 27. 

t Is. 26: 3. 


t Tauler, 1290-1361. 




PEACE WITH GOD AND THE PEACE OF GOD. 169 


the ship and yielding it up to the influence of the 
earth’s gravity, so the believer will be held in quiet, 
who, letting go of earthly anxieties, yields himself 
utterly and without reserve to the sway of the 
divine will. As saith the Scripture again, “ Be 
careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer 
and supplication let your requests be made known 
unto God, and the peace of God which passeth all 
understanding shall keep your hearts and minds 
through Christ Jesusf* Now this peace is dis¬ 
tinctly named as one of the fruits of the Spirit; 

and they who have received the second blessing of--* 

the sealing of the Holy Ghost, have often entered^- 
into this second peace and been filled with its 
unspeakable joy. 

Let us give a marked example of such an expe¬ 
rience. 

“ But do you see it in your own heart ? ” was the 
penetrating question of Mr. Haldane which led to 
Merle D’Aubigne’s conversion. He saw the doc¬ 
trine of the new birth theologically and as con¬ 
tained in Scripture ; but as yet he had not known 
it experimentally, as written in the heart. And 
now, while at the University in Geneva, he tells us 


* Phil. 4: 7- 





THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


170 


that he sought and “ experienced the joys of the 
new birth.” Being justified by faith he had peace 
with God; he knew himself forgiven and accepted. 
But still he lacked perfect joy and the peace of 
God keeping his heart and mind. 

Some years after his conversion, he and two 
intimate friends, Frederick Monod and Charles 
Rieu, were found at an inn at Kiel, where the 
chances of travel had detained them, searching 
the word of God together for its hidden riches. 
D’Aubigne thus tells the story of what there 
passed in his own soul: — 

“ We were studying the epistle to the Ephesians, and 
had got to the end of the third chapter, where we read 
the last two verses — ‘ Now unto him who is able to do 
exceedmg abundantly above all that we ask or think, ac¬ 
cording to the power that worketh in us, unto him be 
glory, etc.’ This expression fell upon my soul as a 
revelation from God. ‘ He can do by his power/ I said 
to myself, 1 above all that we ask , above all even that 
we think ; nay, exceeding abundantly above all.’ A full 
trust in Christ for the work to be done within my poor 
heart now filled my soul. We all three knelt down, 
and, although I had never fully confided my inward 
struggles to my friends, the prayer of Rieu was filled 




PEACE WITH GOD AND THE PEACE OF GOD . 1 7 1 


with such admirable faith as he would have uttered 
had he known all my wants. When I arose, in that inn 
room at Kiel, I felt as if my ‘ wings were renewed as 
the wings of eagles.’ From that time forward I com¬ 
prehended that all my own efforts were of no avail; 
that Christ was able to do all by his ‘ power that work- 
eth in us,’ and the habitual attitude of my soul was, to 
lie at the foot of the cross, crying to him ‘ Here am I, 
bound hand and foot, unable to move, unable to do the 
least thing to get away from the enemy who oppresses 
me. Do all thyself. I know that thou wilt do it. 
Thou wilt even do exceeding abundantly above all that 
I ask.’ 

I was not disappointed: all my doubts were re¬ 
moved, my anguish quelled; and the Lord ‘ extended 
to me peace as a river.’ Then I could comprehend 
with all saints what is the breadth and length and 
depth and height, and know the love of Christ which 
passeth knowledge. Then I was able to say, ‘ Return 
unto thy rest, O my soul! for the Lord hath dealt 
bountifully with thee.’ ” 

Here indeed was a most blessed experience ; but 
not something strange and exceptional in religious 
biography. We can trace the same thing under 
different names through many saintly lives. The 



THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


172 


“ inward death ” of Mysticism ; the “ divine still¬ 
ness M of Quietism; the ‘‘rest of faith” of the 
brethren of the Higher Life — all these terms are 
readily translated back into the one idea of the 
Peace of God ruling in the heart. It is, in a word, 
the perfect quiet which comes to the soul which is 
yielded up in perfect self-surrender to God. Tau- 
ler is constantly describing it as the fruition of 
- that wonderful second life of his after his two 
years retirement from the pulpit into the cell. “If 
a man truly loves God,” he says, “ and has no will 
but to do God’s will, the whole force of the river 
Rhine may run at hint and will not disturb him or 
break his peace.” In another passage of exquisite 
beauty he describes at length the delights and 
richness of this experience. It is, as we must 
believe, the miniature of his own inner life, though 
we might almost suppose it to be a leaf from some 
angel’s biography. This is his language : — 

“ Christ reveals himself with an infinite love, sweet¬ 
ness and richness, flowing forth from the power of the 
Holy Ghost, overflowing and streaming in a very flood 
of richness and sweetness into the heart that is waiting 
to receive it; and with this sweetness he not only re¬ 
veals Himself to the soul, but unites Himself with her. 



PEACE WITH GOD AND THE PEACE OF GOD . 173 


Through this sweetness, the soul in its essence by grace 
flows out with power above all creatures, back into her 
first origin and fount. Then is the outward man obedi-v 
ent unto the inward man, even unto death, and liveth \ 
in constant peace in the service of God continually. 
That the Lord may thus come into our souls also, over¬ 
throwing and casting out all hindrances, bodily or spir¬ 
itual, that we may become one here on earth and here¬ 
after in the kingdom of heaven, may he help us ever¬ 
more.” 

But let us pause to say that we should not dwell ^ 
on such experiences merely to beget an appetite 
for religious luxury. Spiritual peace is of little 
value except as it can reinforce our strength for 
spiritual conflict. The rest of faith by all means ! 
But let that rest constitute a centre of activity, 
not a centre of stagnation. And this surely is the 
reason why God calls us to be sharers in his peace, 
that we may be thereby armed for his warfare. 
Have we noted sufficiently the twofold rest to 
which we are invited in our Lord’s oft-quoted invi¬ 
tation ? “ Come unto me all ye that labor and are 

heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” * Release, 


* Matt, ii : 28 - 30 . 




174 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


this means, from legal bondage, from fruitless 
efforts at self-help, from fretting anxieties and 
from the burdens of sin. It is rest from labor, even 
from our own profitless, fleshly endeavors to save 
ourselves and to glorify God. But our Lord imme¬ 
diately adds, “ Take my yoke upon you and learn 
of me, . . . and ye shall find rest to your souls.” 
Here is the promise of rest in labor , as the other 
was a call to rest from labor. The attainment of 
this is the first and very highest condition of 
power. And it comes from perfect oneness of 
will and heart with God. “ In him we live and 
move,” and just in proportion as we partake of the 
eternal repose of God by being centred in him, 
shall we partake also of the divine motion of God, 
and become laborers together with Him. Quiet 
and not agitation is the source of the highest 
energy.* 

He who entered into rest on the seventh day, 
having finished the work of creation, is he who 


* “ As opposed to passion, changefulness or laborious exertion, repose is the 
special and separating characteristic of the Eternal mind and power; it is the ‘ I 
am ’ of the Creator as opposed to the ‘ I become ’ of all creatures. It is the sign 
alike of the supreme knowledge which is incapable of surprise, the supreme power 
which is incapable of labor, and the supreme volition which is incapable of 
change. ” — Ruskin. 




PEACE WITH GOD AND THE PEACE OF GOD. 175 


“worketh hitherto” and is still accomplishing our 
redemption, “according to the working of his 
mighty power which he wrought in Christ when 
he raised him from the dead.” So it comes to pass 
that Christians who are most calm in the conscious 
enduement of power, are those who have the 
greatest energy to stir others. We find an excel¬ 
lent illustration of this principle in the powerful 
ministry of William C. Burns, the eminent Scotch 
evangelist and missionary. The effects of his 
preaching were often as startling as those of Mr. 
Finney, referred to in another chapter. We give 
a single instance from his own record. It is the 
account of a sermon preached at Kilsyth, July 23, 
1839: — 

“ And just as I was speaking I felt my soul moved 
in a remarkable manner to plead with the unconverted 
before me, instantly to close with God’s offers of mercy, 
and continued to do so until the power of the Lord’s 
Spirit became so mighty upon their souls as to carry 
all before it, like the rushing mighty wind of Pentecost! 
During the whole time that I was speaking, the people 
listened with the most rivetted and solemn attention, 
and with many silent tears and inward groanings of 
spirit; but at last their feelings became too strong 



176 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


for all ordinary restraints, and broke forth simultane¬ 
ously in weeping and wailing, tears and groans, inter¬ 
mingled with shouts of joy and praise from the people 
of God. The appearance of a great part of the people 
from the pulpit, gave me an awfully vivid picture of the 
state of the ungodly in the day of Christ’s coming to 
judgment. Some were screaming in agony, others, and 
among them strong men, fell to the ground as if they 
had been dead.To my own astonishment, dur¬ 

ing the progress of this wonderful scene, when almost 
all present were overpowered, it pleased the Lord to keep 
my soul perfectly calm.” 

Yes! and this is the demonstration of peace as 
the other fact was the demonstration of power. 
“ Stand still and see the salvation of God.” And 
they that looked on wondered as much at the calm¬ 
ness of the preacher as at the commotion of the 
people. Ah ! but there is a very significant pre¬ 
lude to this scene of spiritual upheaving. His 
peacefulness was a calm between two powerful 
agitations, one in the closet and one in the pews. 
A friend of his records how the evening before a 
great field-day, he found him lying on his face in 
an agony of prayer —“ the source , doubtless , of that 
holy calm which so struck the heaters on the sue - 




PEACE WITH GOD AND THE PEACE OF GOD. 177 


ceeding morning .” Thus, once more, through the 
open closet door we discern secrets which no rea¬ 
soning would have unfolded to us : — 

“ Mr. Burns went to his room, and whilst we waited 
for his coming down stairs to dinner we heard a heavy- 
groan. Thinking he had been taken ill, Mrs. Thoms 
ran up stairs and found him lying upon his face on the 
floor, groaning before the Lord. He had gotten such 
an overwhelming sense of his responsibility for the 
souls of that people, that he could then think of nothing 
else. In his absence of mind he had left his door par¬ 
tially open, which Mrs. Thoms shut, and we did not see 
him again till late in the evening, when he came for the 
family worship. His prayer then was one continuous 
strain of self-loathing and pleading for mercy through 
the blood of the Lamb of God. It happened that his 
room was next to mine, and all that night I heard him 
still groaning in prayer.” * 

It is the old wonderful story repeated, of Jacob 
wrestling with God, taking hold of the divine 
strength and conquering a peace, until the “ thou 
hast prevailed ” and “ thou hast power with God 
and with men ” is spoken. The peace of God is 
the true source of power with men, and real power 


* Memoirs, p. 546. 




i 7 8 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


with men is marked by the most serene quiet. 
Remember what God says of his servant in whom 
he delighteth — “I will put my spirit upon him 
and he shall show judgment to the Gentiles. He 
shall not strive nor cry , neither shall any man hear 
his voice in the streets.” In other words, the 
enduement of the Spirit is characterized by tran¬ 
quil strength and noiseless efficiency. The com¬ 
munion which links us to God’s power links us to 
his peacefulness as well.* Let us insist with 
utmost emphasis, that the peace which we com¬ 
mend shall not be sought for itself. This has been 
the grave defect alike to monkish asceticism and 
Protestant quietism. A stagnant peace is sure to 
breed the malaria of doubt and discontent. That 
which God calls us to inherit is not of this kind. 
“ Oh, that thou hadst hearkened unto my com¬ 
mandments,” he says by the prophet; “ then had 
thy peace been as a river” f Like the river which 
purifies itself by its own motion, which keeps all 
the banks green and fertile along which it flows, 


* “ God is a centre to the soul; and just as in a circle what is nearest the centre 
is subject to least motion, so the closer the soul is to God, the less the movement 
and agitation to which it is exposed. ” — Gotthold. 


t Isaiah 48: 18. 




PEACE WITH GOD AND THE PEACE OP GOD. 179 


and which as it widens and deepens takes up the 
ships of commerce and bears them on its bosom. 

It is the peace of motion, not of rest; of life, and 
not of death. Good Thomas a Kempis’ counsel 
to the seeker after peace that he should find it, 

“ in poverty, retirement and with God,” was per¬ 
haps the best advice that he knew. But it does 
not satisfy the heart of one who longs supremely 
to serve God by serving his generation ; and we 
can understand why a zealous spirit like that of 
John Wesley should have been repelled by the 
asceticism of the “ Imitation of Christ,” while he 
was led by the perusal of the more practical and 
humane treatise, the “ Holy Living and Dying” 
of Jeremy Taylor, to dedicate “all his thoughts, 
words and actions ” to the service of God. There 
are some things which we may pursue as ends, 
and v others which come to us as blessings attend¬ 
ant upon the search after higher objects. Happi¬ 
ness is the accompaniment of virtue ; joy is the 
inevitable reward of well doing; peace is the cer¬ 
tain fruit of whole hearted consecration to God. 
But the moment any one of these blessings is 
sought for itself, it will lose its sweetness and [, 
savor. This principle is most clearly set forth by 



i8o 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


our Lord in that saying of his, “ Seek ye first the 
kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all 
these things shall be added unto you .” * Now 
peace is one of the added things which will cer¬ 
tainly come to those who trust Christ with all their 
heart, and serve their generation with all their 
might; but it will constantly elude the grasp of 
those who pursue it merely for itself. 

Nothing is said about our keeping peace with 
God by our toil and striving and watching. The 
peace of God is promised to keep us. We are not 
to be over-anxious about it, as though it depended 
upon our efforts. When Gideon had heard the 
Lord saying to him, “ Peace be unto thee,” he 
built an altar in Ophrah and named it “Jehovah 
Shalom ,” f the Lord send peace, and then went 
forth in the way of duty and obedience. Though 
he had been very self-distrustful, because he was 
of poor family and the least in his father’s house, 
and though the weapons of his warfare were very 
contemptible, yet he soon got* the victory and 
brought his nation into long-continued peace; so 
that we read that “ the country was in quietness 
forty years in the days of Gideon.” We see that 


Matt. 5: 33. 


| Judges 6; 24. 




PEA CE WITH GOD A AD THE PEA CE OF GOD. 1 8 1 


he went forth from peace instead of going forth to 
seek peace ; the altar and covenant of the Lord 
were his point of departure. Precisely this is our 
condition as believers. The cross of Christ in¬ 
scribed with “Jehovah Shalom ” is our starting 
point. Having peace with God through the blood 
of Christ we go forth to service ; in warfare, in 
testimony, in toil doing the will of God from the 
heart, anxious for nothing, and fixing the eye only 
upon the glory of God. Then as the certain in¬ 
come of our obedience will the peace of God be 
poured into our hearts. The more the spirit of 
the world gets possession of the Christian, the 
more of the world’s unrest and conflict will he 
have; the more he is given up to the guidance of 
the control of the Spirit of the Lord, the more of 
God’s peace will he enjoy, since “to be spiritually 
minded is life and peace.” Let us rejoice then 
evermore, both in the work of Christ done for us, 
and in the work of the Spirit done in us. 

By the one we get the righteousness of Christ 
imputed to us ; by the other the righteousness of 
Christ imparted to us. “ And the work of right¬ 
eousness shall be peace; and the effects of right¬ 
eousness, quietness and assurance forever.” 










































































































































































































































VIII. 


POWER FOR SONSH/P AND POWER FOR 
SER VICE . 


“There are two schools of doctrine among professing 
Christians as to the offices and relations of the Lord. 
The first speaks thus; Any work or office,* held by 
Christ, cannot be held by us; it usurps His right if we 
pretend to share them. The other, which is the old 
doctrine, answers thus: If the Incarnation means any¬ 
thing, if Christ and His church are really one body, all 
Christ’s offices first held and exercised by Him on be¬ 
half of men must likewise be held and shared by His 
members, because He lives in them just as they appre¬ 
hend that for which they were apprehended. The for¬ 
mer view, which I feel assured is a mistake, arises from 
a misconception of the first great truth of Christ for us f 
to the denial of the greater truth of Christ in u?, and we 
His members. The latter opens the riches of the glory 
of the mystery, which it now revealed, which is Christ 
in us , the hope of glory. The latter is the Church’s 
faith which, however caricatured and abused cannot be 
denied without sore loss to the deniers. For this faith 
confesses the Incarnation, that the Lord still dwells in 
flesh and blood, and that because He dwells in us, 
though in ourselves we can do nothing, we can yet do 
all things through Christ, who is the power in us ; and 
because He is ‘the same yesterday, to-day and forever/ 
if He live in us, He will yet do His proper works, in 
and through those who grow up out of self to live in 
Him.” — Andrew Jukes, 


VIII. 


POWER FOR SONSHIP AND POWER FOR 
SERVICE. 



S many as received him, to them gave he 


power to become the sons of God,” says 
the-Scripture. Christ for us, as our life must first 
of all be appropriated in order that we may stand 
in the place of sonship to the Father. We do not 
work for life, but from life ; we do not by our own 
power attain unto Christ, but we receive Christ in 
order that we may have power to attain. “ We 
preach Christ crucified the power of Godfi * says 
the apostle. That is, we hold up this external fact 
of the Son of God bearing our sins and putting 
them away, and we beseech the sinner to look at 
this fact and accept it and rest in it. This is the 
gospel, and the Scriptures declare that this gospel 
of Christ is “ the power of God unto salvation f to 
every one that believeth.” By no striving of our 


* I Cor. 1 : 18 . 


t Rom. i; 16 . 



THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


186 


own, by no energy of will or strength of repent¬ 
ance can we attain unto salvation. Eternal life is 
the gift of God, which, when we receive it, makes 
us partakers of “the power of an endless life;” it 
is not an attainment which we can grasp by the 
power of our own finite life. In other words, we 
are first of all to accept Christ’s life and work and 
redemption for us, as that which can alone put us 
into relations of sonship and justification and fel¬ 
lowship with the Father. 

But to such as have already become the sons of 
God, there is a promise given of still greater 
attainment, the power of the indwelling Spirit. 
“ But ye shall receive power after that the Holy 
Ghost is come 2ipon you , and ye shall be witnesses 
unto me.” Before it was power to become the 
sons of God; now it is power to serve as the sons 
of God. And it is very significant to observe how 
constantly this kind of energy is connected in the 
Scriptures with the Holy Ghost. “ The power of 
the Spirit of God.” * “ The demonstration of the 

Spirit and of power.” f “ With the Holy Ghost and 
power.” $—These are illustrations, which might be 
greatly multiplied, of the constant association of 


Romans 15: 19. 


t 1 Cor. 2: 4. 


X Acts 10 • 38. 





POWEk FOR SONSHIP AND 1 87 

these two ideas. Christ’s ascension to the Father, 
as we know, was the condition of the descent of 
the Spirit ; and concerning this the Lord said, 

“ The works that I do shall ye do also, and greater 
works than these shall ye do, because I go unto my 
Father .” * Thus the ministry of the Spirit was * 
announced to be mightier in results than that of 
the Son. This would not seem easy to credit. If 
we were ignorant of the facts of science, and some 
one were to show us a reservoir of water, and tell 
us that this element is capable of three manifesta¬ 
tions, liquid, vapor and solid, and ask us which 
would be the most powerful, we might say the 
solid form ; and looking at the iceberg which can 
crush a huge ship as you grind a dry leaf between 
your fingers, this conclusion would seem to be jus¬ 
tified. But science would point at once to the 
va por — so light, so impalpable, and in its finer 
forms so invisible, and remind us that this is the 
power that is moving our huge steamships, and 
drawing our countless railway trains, and driving 
our ponderous factories—the greatest motive force 
in our modern civilization. The blessed Trinity 
has been manifested to us in two forms in this dis- 


* John 14: 12. 





i88 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


pensation. First, he came as the Word made flesh, 
the incarnate Lord, with the might of his divine man¬ 
hood, that could silence the winds, still the waves, 
open the gates of the grave, and reverse the laws 
of gravitation. Is not this the most powerful rev¬ 
elation of God ? “ Greater works than these shall 

ye do,” is his answer. When God comes as the 
secret invisible Spirit, like the wind which we can¬ 
not see, and cannot tell whence it cometh or 
whither it goeth ; and when this Spirit shall dwell 
in his fullness in believers, moving their wills, in¬ 
spiring their words and energizing their actions, 
then shall be seen the greatest things for the glory 
of God and the salvation of souls, that have yet 
been witnessed. It is this gift of the Spirit as 
a divine power for service and testimony, that 
we wish to unfold in the remaining part of this 
chapter. 

This special enduement of strength from the 
Holy Spirit we have already alluded to in a pre¬ 
vious chapter We shall now consider it more at 
length, as revealed in the divine word and in 
human lives. 

In the case of our Lord Jesus Christ there is a 
distinct recognition of this enduement, as consti- 



POWER FOR SERVICE. 


189 


tuting his preparation for his ministry. After the 
visible descent of the Holy Ghost upon him at the 
Jordan, we read that he “ returned in the power of 
the Spirit ” into Galilee/' * and that he went into 
the synagogue at Nazareth and read and applied 
to himself the words of the prophet, “ the Spirit 
of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed 
me to preach the gospel to the poor." In the Acts 
of the Apostles we hear Peter declaring “ How 
God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy 
Ghost and with power , f who went about doing 
good and healing all that were oppressed of the 
devil." 

In the case of his apostles, we find a constant 
recognition of the same fact. “ Now he which 
establisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anoint¬ 
ed ns is Godf f says Paul writing to the Corinthi¬ 
ans. “ The anointing which ye have received of 
him abideth in yonf § writes John. And these, 
Jesus Christ and his apostles, we boldly affirm to 
Be our exemplars and models in this as in all 
other things. And the history of God's church 
abundantly confirms the view that those who have 
done the greatest work for God, have done it 


* Luke 4: 14. 


f Acts 10: 38. 


$ 2 Cor. 1: 21. 


§ 1 John 2 : 27. 




THE TWO - FOLD LIFE. 


190 


through the unction of the Holy Ghost and power 
which was on them. 

To some this anointing has come almost simul¬ 
taneously with conversion ; to many it has come 
at a considerable period afterward. The apostles 
Peter and Paul furnish types of the two classes. 
Peter we must suppose to have been a regenerated 
man when he made his confession, “ Thou art the 
Christ, the Son of the living God.” But how weak 
an apostle for one naturally so strong ; how timid 
for one so bold ; how inefficient for one so zealous! 
Yet after that on the day of Pentecost he had 
been baptized with the Holy Ghost, he was utterly 
changed. He who had cowered before a maid and 
denied his Lord, now preached like a lion and 
boldly declared Jesus to be both Saviour and Lord, 
in the face of all his foes. Paul, on the other hand, 
was the same man from the very beginning,* be¬ 
cause his conversion and his anointing came close 
together. There have been some Pauls in the 
modern church, but more Peters — and we shall 


* “ St. Paul was born a man, an apostle; not carved out as the rest in time, but 
a fusile apostle, an apostle poured out and cast in a mould. As Adam was a per¬ 
fect man in an instant, so was St. Paul an apostle as soon as Christ took him in 
hand.” — John Donne, 1573-1631. 




POWER FOR SONSHIP AND 191 

cause examples of both to pass in review before us. 
Let us select from our own times an illustration of 
a powerful revival preacher. 

An eminent authority expressed the opinion 
some years ago, that probably no man since the 
days of Whitfield had been instrumental in turn¬ 
ing so many souls to God by his preaching as Rev. 
Charles G. Finney.* Certainly we should not 
know where to look in recent times, to find such 
startling and overwhelming supernatural results 
attending the proclamation of the gospel, as those 
which were witnessed under his ministry. As he 
went from place to place evangelizing, whole com¬ 
munities would be thrown under conviction at 
once ; upon his very first utterance the feeling 
would sometimes be such as “to make the stoutest 
men writhe on their seats as if a sword had been 
thrust into their hearts.” Hearers who succeeded 
in repressing their emotion in church would rush 
home, and unable to contain themselves longer, 
would “ fall upon the floor and burst out into a 
loud wailing in view of their sins.” In one place, 
so utterly abandoned and godless that it had 
acquired the name of Sodom, he preached ; and 


* Kirk’s Lectures on Revivals, p. 142. 




192 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


as at the close of his sermon he began to apply 
the truth to the people’s consciences, he says : 
“ I had not spoken to them in this strain of direct 
application, I should think more than a quarter of 
an hour, when all at once an awful solemnity 
seemed to settle down upon them ; the congrega¬ 
tion began to fall from their seats in every direc¬ 
tion and cry for mercy. If I had had a sword in 
each hand, I could not have cut them off their 
seats as fast as they fell. Indeed nearly the whole 
congregation were either on their knees or pros¬ 
trate, I should think, in less than two minutes 
from the first shock that fell upon them. Every 
one prayed for himself, who was able to speak at 
all.” * And the results were even more wonderful 
than the impressions. Vast ingatherings attended 
his labors wherever he went. Of the fruits of one 
revival which sprang forth under his preaching, so 
judicious an observer as Dr. Lyman Beecher de¬ 
clared that it “was the greatest work of God and 
the greatest revival of religion that the world has 
ever seen in so short a time, one hundred thousand 
being reported as having connected themselves 
with churches as the results of that great revival.”! 


* Autobiography, pp. 103, 161. 


t Id., p. 301. 




POWER FOR SERVICE. 


193 


As we consider the issues of such a mighty 
ministry, we naturally ask, what was the secret 
spiritual history of this extraordinary instrument 
of God. An intense personality, a vehement will, 
a fearless courage and a fiery enthusiasm, these 
will be referred to at once by many as yielding the 
true secret of his power. Very efficient as a me¬ 
dium we admit these qualities to be, but utterly 
inadequate as a motive force for such results. 
Natural qualities are sufficient for natural ends, 
but not for supernatural. Savonarola the man, 
cannot account for Savonarola the preacher. Na¬ 
ture had withheld from him, they tell us, almost 
all the gifts of the orator. But when we read of 
his intense and enrapt communion with God, his 
unconquerable persistence in seeking the power of 
the Highest, till “his thoughts and affections were 
so absorbed in God by the presence of the Holy 
Spirit, that they who looked into his cell saw his 
upturned face as it had been the face of an angel,” 
we are not amazed at the character and effects of 
his preaching—so pathetic, so melting, so resist¬ 
less that the reporter lays down his pen with this 
apology written under the last line — “ Such sor- 



194 


THE TWO - FOLD LIFE. 


row and weeping came upon me that I could go no 
further .” 

Finney was a Pauline preacher because he had 
a Pauline experience — the peace of God and the 
power of God coming to him almost together. 
And giving all due consideration to his uncommon 
natural endowments, we are constrained to find the 
chief secret of his success in his remarkable spir¬ 
itual history. Let us read this as he has written 
it for us. 

He had been converted after passing through 
powerful spiritual exercises, and immediately after, 
on October ioth, 1821, while alone in his law office, 
he says : — 

“ I then received a mighty baptism of the Holy 
Ghost. Without any expectation of it, without ever 
having the thought in my mind that there was such a 
thing for me, without any recollection that I had ever 
heard the thing mentioned by any person in the world, 
the Holy Spirit descended upon me in a manner that 
seemed to go through me, body and soul. I could feel 
the impression li! e a wave of electricity, going through 
and through me. Indeed, it seemed to come in waves 
of liquid love; for I could not express it in any other 
way. It seemed like the very breath of God. I can 



POWER FOR SONSHIP AND 


I 9 5 


recollect distinctly that it seemed to fan me like im¬ 
mense wings. No words can express the wonderful 
love that was shed abroad in my heart. I wept aloud 
with joy and love ; and I do not know but I should 
say, I literally bellowed out the unutterable gushings 
of my heart. These waves came over me, and over 
me, one after the other, until I recollect I cried out, 
* I shall die if these waves continue to pass over me/ 
I said, * Lord, I cannot bear any more.’ Yet I had no 

fear of death.Thus I continued till late at night. 

I received some sound repose. When I awoke in the 
morning the sun had risen, and was pouring a clear 
light into my room. Words cannot express the impres¬ 
sion that this sunlight made upon me. Instantly the 
baptism that I had received the night before returned 
upon me in the same manner. I arose upon my knees 
in the bed and wept aloud with joy, and remained for 
some time too much overwhelmed with the baptism of 
the Spirit to do anything but pour out my soul to God. 
It seemed as if this morning’s baptism was accompan¬ 
ied with a gentle reproof, and the Spirit seemed to say 
to me, * Will you doubt? Will you doubt? ’ I cried, 
‘No! I will not doubt; I cannot doubt.’ He then 
cleared the subject up so much to my mind that it was 
impossible for me to doubt that the Spirit of God had 
taken possession of my soul.” * 


* Autobiography, pp. 20, 21. 






196 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


Then followed the same results as in the apos¬ 
tolic times. First a powerful assurance of sonship 
in the inward witness of the Spirit ; then power 
for utterance—such that as he went forth preach¬ 
ing whole neighborhoods would be seized with 
deep religious impression at once. 

Upon which fact we pause to observe that this 
is the divine way of quickening men to seriousness 
and repentance. “ Give us a revival moved and 
begotten by the Holy Spirit, and not one stirred 
up by the coming of an evangelist,” is the cry of 
many Christians — a demand as reasonable as that 
your telegraphic message shall be brought to you 
without the intervention of the wires. The Holy 
Spirit acts through a medium, the word of God, 
and through an agent, the man of God ; and it is 
by Christians anointed and filled with the Holy 
Ghost, that the Spirit’s convicting and regenera¬ 
ting power is brought to bear on souls. 

Here too, in a degree, the Master’s example 
holds for the disciples in all time. John the Bap¬ 
tist had this test of the true Messiah given him. 
“ Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending 
and remaining on him , the same is he which bap- 
tizeth with the Holy Ghost.”* The abiding and 


John 1: 33. 




POWER FOR SERVICE. 


197 


indwelling of the Spirit constituted Christ’s power 
not only for personal service, but for communica¬ 
ting spiritual energy to others. He who on the 
banks of the Jordan was filled with the breath of 
God, could breathe on his disciples and say, “ Re¬ 
ceive ye the Holy Ghost.” 

But when the disciples were baptized with the 
Holy Ghost at Pentecost, they no longer possessed 
the Spirit by measure. They had now his abiding 
presence. He “ sat upon each of them, and they 
were all filled with the Holy Ghost.” * Now John 
could say to his brethren, “ But the anointing 
which ye have received of Him abideth in you.” f 
And as with the Lord so with the servants, they 
could communicate the Spirit unto others. Ana¬ 
nias is sent to Saul immediately upon his conver¬ 
sion, “ and putting his hands on him said, Brother 
Saul, the Lord, even Jesus that appeared unto thee 
in the way as thou earnest, hath sent me, that thou 
mightest receive thy sight and be filled with the 
Holy Ghost.” % Peter and John are sent to the 
Samaritans as soon as it is known that they have 
received the word, and they laid their hands on 
them and they received‘ the Holy Ghost. § 


* Acts. 2: 4. 


t 1 John 2: 27. 


t Acts 9: 17. 


§ Acts 19: 6. 




198 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


Not to enter into the difficult question of the 
laying on of hands, this much is evident from 
these instances, that it is God’s way to commu¬ 
nicate his Spirit through human vessels which 
have been filled and sanctified for this purpose. 
And this fact is not strange or foreign to present 
Christian experience. We have the remembrance 
of having once or twice come in contact with con¬ 
secrated servants of Christ, who have imparted to 
us a spiritual influence as real and sensible, as the 
electric shock which the galvanic battery gives 
when its knob is touched. As impossible as it is 
that our thoughts should effect the world and stir 
men to action till they have been incarnated in 
human speech, so contrary to God’s method is it 
that, the Holy Spirit should accomplish his con¬ 
victing and renewing and sanctifying work except 
by operating through the tongue and life and 
energy of living men and women. The mimicry of 
revivals, effected by the skill of magnetic preachers, 
we indeed too often see. But that an evangelist, 
filled with the Spirit of God, should stir whole com¬ 
munities with a sudden and resistless religious im¬ 
pulse, is not a strange fact, but one in perfect ac¬ 
cordance with scripture teaching and precedent. 



POWER FOR SO NS HIP AND 


199 


Say not in thy heart, Oh cautious Christian, that 
the revival is not of God because it is brought by a 
man ; that the divine sovereignty has been ignored 
and sent" to the rear because a human agent 
appears conspicuously at the front. “ When God 
would save man ” says Jeremy Taylor “he did it 
by way of a man ; ” and whether it be salvation or 
sanctification, the conviction of sinners or the 
quickening of believers this is always his method. 

But there are various operations by the same 
Spirit, and the same enduement is given for other 
kinds of service. Let us take an example from 
among the Christian philanthropists. 

Does one speak too strongly who calls the or¬ 
phanage at Bristol, England, “ the standing miracle 
of the nineteenth century ? ” We simply point to 
the fact of one man sheltering, feeding, clothing, 
and educating thousands of poor children through 
a series of years with no funds or resources to 
draw from except what God has sent him in 
answer to prayer. And remembering also that the 
money expended in this work has amounted in all 
to some millions, we concede at least that it is an 
extraordinary enterprise. We look at the man 
who has been the human agent in guiding this vast 



2 C 0 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


beneficence, and we instinctively desire to get a 
glimpse into his closet to discover if possible what 
secret transactions with God, lie behind this great 
public transaction. And here we find the same 
story which has been told over and over again in 
this book. 

George Muller was converted in 1825 while a 
student in the University of Halle, but until 1829 
he seems hardly to have known whether there be 
any Holy Spirit. He has graphically told us how 
in that year while staying at Teignmouth in Eng¬ 
land he was made acquainted with the person and 
office-work of the Comforter, and how the blessed 
secret of the Spirit’s guidance and illumination and 
enduement was made known to him. It all came 
to him now as a divine baptism. Of the joy and 
exaltation which followed he thus speaks. 

*' In the beginning of September I returned to Lon¬ 
don, much better in body ; and as to viy soul the change 
was so great that it was like a second conversion, After 
my return to London, I sought to benefit my brethren 
in the seminary, and the means I used were these. I 
proposed to them to meet together every morning from 
six to eight for prayer and reading the Scriptures ; and 
then that each of us should give out what he might con- 



POWER FOR SERVICE. 


201 


sider the Lord had shown him to be the meaning of the 
portion read. One brother in particular was brought 
into the same state as myself, and others I trust were 
more or less benefitted. S'everal times when I went 
to my room after family prayer in the evening, I found 
communion with God so sweet that I continued in 
prayer till after twelve and then being full of joy, went 
into the room of the brother just referred to, and finding 
him also in a similar frame of heart, we continued 
praying until one or two; and even then I was a few 
times so full of joy that I could scarcely sleep, and 
at six in the morning again called the brethren to¬ 
gether for prayer. 

He who four years before had drank of the water 
of life, now found it “within him a well of water 
springing up into everlasting life ; ” and the third 
experience began at once to follow — “ out of his 
heart shall flow rivers of living water.” How 
many orphaned lives have those streams since en¬ 
riched and made glad ? 

What Mr. Muller discovered in this experience 
was that, the Holy Spirit can do for us those 
things which with endless toil and endeavor we 
undertake to do for ourselves. He will lead us 


* Life of Trust, p. 71 




202 


THE TWO - FOLD LIFE. 


into all truth if we will only let him, instead of 
taking philosophy and logic as our schoolmasters. 
Finding out this, he says: “The result was that 
the first evening I shut myself into my room to 
give myself to prayer and meditation over the 
Scriptures, I learned more in a few hours than I 
had done during a period of several months pre¬ 
viously.” Hear this, ye teachers in the schools of 
the prophets. Some of us think that you have 
gone down to Egypt for help in summoning sci¬ 
ence and metaphysics and rational learning into 
your class rooms to furnish you the key of knowl¬ 
edge. “There standeth One among you whom ye 
know not.” Ask Him who has been sent to take 
of the things of Christ and shew them unto you, 
what is the meaning of this mystery and that, and 
He will reveal it unto you. We have a delightful 
glimpse into one theological lecture-room, whose 
doors we would desire to set open before the eyes 
of every teacher and student of divinity. Fletcher 
of Madeley was for a while the Principal of Lady 
Huntingdon’s training college for ministers at 
Trevecca in Wales. One who sat under his in¬ 
structions tells us how he taught. Speaking of 
his sessions in the class-room, he says: “Such 



POWER FOR SON SHIP AND 


203 


seasons generally terminated in this. Being con¬ 
vinced that to be filled with the Holy Ghost was 
a better qualification for the ministry than any 
classical learning, after speaking a while in the 
school-room he used to say, * As many of you as 
are athirst for the fullness of the Spirit follow me 
into my rooml On this matny of us have instantly 
followed him, and there continued for two or three 
hours, wrestling like Jacob for the blessing; and 
praying one after another till we could not bear to 
kneel any longer.” 

We do not insist that exercises like this should 
constitute the sum of all theological teaching. 
Let learning have its proper place; but we believe 
that the Holy Spirit should be Head Master in 
every school of divinity; and that whatever diplo¬ 
mas or degrees we may win, all are nothing in 
comparison with this one which was conferred 
upon the first disciples, “ Ye have an unction from 
the Holy One , and ye know all things .” 

And discovering that the Spirit of Truth is the 
best instructor for the preacher, Mr. Muller con¬ 
cluded also that he might be the best collector for 
the philanthropist. Why not? Cannot he who 
openeth and no man shutteth, send his Spirit to 
move the will, to unlock the coffers and to give 



204 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


the silver and the gold which are His ? That most 
humiliating office of begging the Lord’s money 
from the Lord’s people, thfe gracious Paraclete has 
undertaken for him through long years, so that he 
has lacked nothing when he has cried unto God 
for hungry mouths. Oh to learn well this lesson 
with all the rest. The shortest way to our neigh¬ 
bor’s heart is through the gates of heaven. If the 
Spirit of grace and supplication rests on us, we 
shall talk less to our brother to make him willing 
to give, and more to God to give him the willing¬ 
ness. We once heard Mr. Muller allude to this 
crisis in his experience as the time when he de¬ 
termined to become “out and out for God” And 
how certainly when we are so, will the Holy Spirit 
become out and out for us, ready to execute the 
burdensome temporalities of Christian work for us ; 
doing the begging of funds, and the drawing of 
congregations, and the filling of pews, which the 
lame faith of this generation is trying to accomplish 
by fairs and festivals, by art and amusement and 
sensationalism. Crutches for a limping Christianity 
are all these. How quickly they would be thrown 
away if the church were truly filled with faith and 
with the Holy Ghost. 



POWER FOR SERVICE. 


205 


And this suggests to us to consider for a little 
the work which the Spirit can accomplish through 
a consecrated Christian, in parish growth and 
extension. The history of the most conspicuous 
leaders in the great Evangelical revival of the last 
century in England, is singularly instructive on 
this point. The experience of several of them was 
identical — years of barren ministry and meagre 
congregations ; then in that mighty awakening, a 
new anointing and illumination from the Holy 
Ghost, and then crowded churches and wide-spread 
harvests of souls. Not to speak of itinerants like 
Whitfield and Wesley, whom we have alluded to 
elsewhere, we may instance pastors of .flocks like 
Berridge and Venn and Walker of Truro and 
Grimshaw. Where in the history of the church 
can we find the difference between a ministry of 
culture, and a ministry of the Holy Ghost, so 
strongly marked ? 

“ Holy William Grimshaw” was for many years 
a diligent formalist, preaching the truth so far as 
he knew it, but with worldly aims and no personal 
acquaintance with the Spirit of truth. Then came 
a great change, of the particulars of which we only 
have glimpses. But one glimpse is enough, as 



20 6 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


found in that solemn instrument of self-dedication 
which he drew up during this transition period. 
We can quote only a fragment of it: — 

“ Glory be to thee, O my triune God! Permit me to 
repeat and renew my covenant with thee. I desire and 
resolve to be wholly and forever thine. Blessed God, 
I most solemnly surrender myself to thee. Hear, O 
heaven, and give ear, O earth ! I avouch this day the 
Lord to be my God, Father, Saviour, and portion for¬ 
ever. I am one of his covenant children forever. Re¬ 
cord, O eternal Lord, in thy book of remembrance that 
henceforth I am thine forever. From this day I sol¬ 
emnly renounce all former lords — world, flesh, and 
devil — in thy name. No more, directly or indirectly, 
will I obey them. I renounced them many years ago, 
and I renounce them now forever. This day I give 
myself up to thee, a living sacrifice, holy and accepta¬ 
ble unto thee, which I know is my reasonable service. 
To thee I consecrate all my worldly possessions ; in thy 
service I desire and purpose to spend all my time, de¬ 
siring thee to teach me to use every moment of it to 
thy glory and the setting forth of thy praise, in every 
station and relation of life I am now or may hereafter 
be in.” 

This covenant, with the one of which it is a 



POWER FOR SO NS HIP AND 


207 


renewal, made fourteen years before, marks the 
first decade of his pastorate at Haworth. And 
what a pastorate was that! To have power to 
move men mightily as an evangelist is a great gift 
of the Spirit; but to be the instrument of re¬ 
claiming a vast desert waste to the Lord, and 
making it rejoice and blossom as the rose—would 
that more of Christ’s servants coveted this honor! 
Haworth was territorially a desolate waste, — rug¬ 
ged, weather-beaten and mountainous. Spiritually 
it was so abandoned that when Grimshaw came to 
it, he declared that he could ride half a • day on 
horseback towards either point of the compass 
without meeting a single serious soul. But as this 
Spirit-baptized pastor began to preach, such power 
attended his ministry, that where at first he found 
hardly more than a score of worshippers, the 
church now became so crowded that many had to 
stand without and listen through the windows. 
His words were like a flame of fire, and as he 
preached “ it was amazing to see and hear what 
weeping, roaring and agony, many people were 
seized with at their apprehension of their sinful 
state and the wrath of God.” 

Throughout this wild region this devoted pastor 



208 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


went week by week, testifying of the grace of God 
publicly and from house to house, and warning men 
night and day with tears. He would often preach 
five times a day, rarely less than three or four, 
travelling forty or fifty miles to accomplish it. 
His spiritual communion meanwhile was so exalted 
that he sometimes had to ask the Lord to stay his 
hand, lest his mortal frame should be overpowered. 
From twelve communicants whom he found on 
coming to the parish, the number arose to twelve 
hundred, and this let it be remembered not amid 
a crowded city population, but in a sparsely settled 
country, where his hearers had often to come many 
miles to attend the service. Such, after a ten 
years’ barren ministry, was the change effected 
when the Spirit of God came and possessed this 
minister of the gospel. His humility deepened 
meanwhile as his piety became more illustrious, 
so that looking on to the end he could say, “ When 
I die I shall then have my greatest grief and my 
greatest joy, — my greatest grief that I have done 
so little for Jesus, and my greatest joy that Jesus 
has done so much for me. My last words shall be, 
i Here goes an unprofitable servant.' ” Let pastors 
who complain of a sterile soil and a sparse and 



POWER FOR SERVICE. 


209 


hardened population as insuperable obstacles, look 
towards this parish of Haworth and take courage. 
“ God is able of these stones to raise up children 
unto Abraham.” 

Would that we had space to cite other examples. 
We should turn our readers’ eyes to Samuel Walker 
of Truro, England, preaching for two years with 
great diligence, but acting only under the inspira¬ 
tion, as he afterwards confessed, of two motives — 
“ a desire of reputation and a love of pleasure ” — 
and the result wide spread spiritual darkness and 
death; then the great change, — a ministry “not 
in word only but also in power, and in the Holy 
Ghost and in much assurance; ” and the result, 
“such crowds attending his preaching that the 
thoroughfares of the town seemed deserted during 
the hours of service,” while converts were num¬ 
bered by the hundred yearly. Or we would point 
to Pastor Harms of Hermannsburg in the kingdom 
of Hanover. We see in the foreground a vast 
field beset with difficulties ; in the background a 
young pastor kneeling far into the night in his 
closet, seeking for the power of the Spirit. “ I 
prayed fervently to the Lord; laid the matter in 
his hand; and as I rose at midnight from my 



210 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


knees I said with a voice that almost startled me 
in the great room, ‘ Forward now in God's name ” 
And after years the result is seen. From a parish 
ten miles square, with seven villages, but all over¬ 
grown with the tares of unbelief and formalism, a 
thousand at a time are seen flocking to church ; 
no year passes without a revival; the number of 
communicants rises to eleven thousand. And the 
desert of 1845 is transformed into such a paradise 
in 1865, that it has been stated that probably no 
parish in Christendom equalled it in spiritual at¬ 
tainments, as it stood before the world in that 
year. What cannot the Holy Spirit accomplish if 
he can only find in men the “vessels unto honor, 
sanctified and meet for the Master’s use and pre¬ 
pared unto every good work ” ? 

Let it not be thought, however, that the power 
of the Spirit’s anointing is to be found only in 
such immense visible results. In the humblest 
service and in the lowliest sphere we observe the 
same fruits. It may require as much divine bold¬ 
ness to speak face to face with a single sinner, as 
to preach to thousands. And in some who have 
felt themselves called of God to the service of 
personal conversation, we have noticed the most 



POWER FOR SO NS HIP AND 


211 


marked exhibitions of the Spirit’s power. Time 
would fail us to tell of those who have been sig¬ 
nally anointed for such work in all ages; from 
Catherine of Siena in the 14th century, who used 
to talk with penitents all day without once stop¬ 
ping for food, so filled was she with the Spirit that 
she could say, “ I have meat to eat that ye know 
not of,” to Harlan Page and John Vassar in our 
own times, who won hundreds of single souls by 
the power of the Spirit that spoke through them. 

Missionaries have by the preparation of the 
Spirit been “baptized into a sense of all condi¬ 
tions ” — that hardest of all attainments to real¬ 
ize. Henry Martyn, at first but an indifferent 
Christian, writes one day in his diary, “ I have 
resigned in profession, the riches, the honors, and 
the comforts of this world; and I think also it is a 
resignation of the heart; ” and a little later he 
speaks of “ the almost supernatural fervor and deep 
devotion which came upon me whilst I declared that 
I had rightfully no other business each day but to 
do God's work , as a servant constantly regarding 
his pleasure .” 

Authors have been endued with the Spirit to 
write for God. Ah ! where is the divine baptism 



212 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE . 


more vitally needed ? “ The same anointing teach - 

eth you of all things ,” writes John. Julius Muller, 
with all his theological learning, seems to have 
needed a kind of spiritual laying on of hands, 
which he received from contact with the pious 
Tholuck, to qualify him to write his great work, 
“ The Doctrine of Sin ” ; and not less did D’ Au- 
bigne require that deeper experience and illumi¬ 
nation referred to on another page, to fit him to 
produce the History of the Reformation — that 
historic exposition of the doctrine of justification 
by faith. There are things of God hidden in the 
Scriptures, diffused through human history, and 
inwrought with religious experience, which no 
intellectual acumen, however subtle, can grasp. 
Therefore for every kind and quality of service we 
need the Paraclete. “ For what man knoweth the 
things of a man, save the spirit of a man which is 
in him ? Even so the things of God knoweth no 
man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have re¬ 
ceived not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit 
which is of God ; that we might know the things 
that are freely given to us of God.” 



IX. 


ACCESS AND SEPARATION 


“The first duty is to attach oneself; detachment 
comes afterwards. The chrysalis covering in which the 
butterfly was prisoned only breaks and falls away when 
the insect’s wings have grown — it is by opening that 
these burst their melancholy integuments. We only 
begin to detach ourselves from the world when we haye 
learned to know something of a better. Till then we 
are but capable of disappointment and weariness, which 
are not detachment.” — Alexatider Vifiet. 


IX. 


ACCESS AND SEPARATION. 

T HERE are two Advocates appointed to us, 
for the maintenance of our two-fold life — 
Christ on the throne, and the Spirit in our hearts. 
“If any man sin we have an Advocate with the 
Father Jesus Chi ist the righteous ” * is the declara¬ 
tion of Scripture concerning the one ; “ I will pray 
the Father and he shall give you anot/icr Advocate 
tJiat he may abide with you forever even the Spit it 
of Truth ” f is the promise of Christ concerning 
the other. The work of Christ for us is still going 
on in heaven where “ he ever liveth to make inter¬ 
cession." And this last saying, from the Epistle 
to the Hebrews, describes exactly what he is now 
doing for us above, viz. living for us, and interceed- 
ing for us. 

Does not the scripture declare that being “ re¬ 
conciled to God through the death of his Son, much 
more being reconciled, we shall be saved by his 
life ? ” J This refers to His risen and glorified life. 


i John 2:1. 


t John 14: 16, (Marginal R. V.) t Roman 5: 10. 



216 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


Our being is so linked with His, our salvation and 
peace are so entirely centered in His person that 
for Christ to live is for us to live. Hence His 
blessed saying, when referring to His departure out 
of the world; “ Because I live ye shall live also.” * 
And hence also that other saying of Scripture 
addressed to those who are dead and risen with 
Christ. “ Your life is hid with Christ in God. 1 ' 
As by the death of Christ on the cross our sins 
were put away, our condemnation removed and our 
justification perfectly accomplished, so now by the 
life of Christ upon the throne our spiritual 
growth is maintained and the work of our sanctifi¬ 
cation carried on. Meanwhile as our great High 
Priest within the veil, He is interceding for us; 
and His intercession is but the reiteration of His 
atonement, a perpetual appeal to the merit of His 
sacrifice and death. How significant, that He who 
on the cross was “ the Lamb of God that taketh 
away the sin of the world ” is now “ in the midst 
of the throne a Lamb standing as though it had 
been slain. 1 ' f Amazing words, which would tell 
us that the marks of His passion, the memorials of 
His vicarious death are still visible on His person 


John 14; 19. 


t Rev. 5, 6, R. V. 





ACCESS AND SEPARATION. 


217 


and that while He intercedes for us they utter their 
pathetic plea to God who is “faithful and just to 
forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all un¬ 
righteousness.” Such is the ministry which our 
Advocate with the Father is continuing for us on 
the throne. 

The other Advocate is meantime perfecting his 
work in our hearts ; and the two ministries exactly 
correspond. The Comforter within is upholding 
and developing the inward divine life ; “ If Christ 
be in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the 
Spirit is life because of righteousness .”* He is 
also continuing an inward intercession according 
with the outward one ; “ The Spirit himself inaketh 
intercession for us with groanings which cannot be 
uttered.”! Such is the double advocacy by which 
our two-fold life is carried on. 

And observe more particularly, how each of 
these ministries exactly supplements the other. 

The love of the Father in giving his Son to be a 
propitiation for our sins, is the truth which is pro¬ 
claimed from every wound on our exalted Saviour’s 
person : and here we are to turn for the assurance 
of our acceptance. The moment we get taken up 


* Rom. 8: 10. 


t Rom. 8: 26. 




218 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


with our own love, as evidenced in our inward 
consciousness we shall fall into darkness. God’s 
love, as set forth in the slain Lamb upon the throne, 
is the only resting place for our faith. But this is 
not all; for our comfort and sanctification He also 
gives us his love within us, as it is written; “Be¬ 
cause the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts 
by the Holy Ghost , which is given unto us.”* Again, 
if any challenge our justification, we turn at once 
and confidently to the cross where that justification 
was accomplished, and to the throne where it is 
now maintained; and we say—“It is God that 
justifieth; who is he that condemneth ? It is 
Christ that died , yea rather , that is risen again , who 
is even at the right hand of God , who also maketh 
intercession for us.” f But while our justification 
was purchased solely by Christ’s death for us, our 
sanctification is to be effected by Christ’s death in 
us. And this is carried on by that other Advocate ; 
“ But if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds 
of the body ye shall live.” § 

And yet once more if we would be assured of our 
bodily resurrection, we look at once to Him whom 
God has raised from the dead and set at His own 


* Rom. v: 5. 


t Rom. 8: 34. 


§ Rom. 8: 13. 




ACCESS AND SEPARATION 


219 


right hand. If He, the First fruits be there, we 
shall be there also, in a body fashioned like the 
body of his glory. But this consummation also 
is made dependent on the inworking of the Com¬ 
forter; “If the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus 
from the dead dwell in you , He that raised up 
Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mor¬ 
tal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you.”* 
Now Christ’s presence at the Father’s right hand, 
and His ministry in the Holy of Holies above, con¬ 
stitute the ground of our access there; and this 
blessed fact of our privilege to enter into the Holi¬ 
est by the blood of Jesus is the truth with which 
the Epistle to the Hebrews is especially occupied. 
Indeed Christ’s exaltation to the Father’s throne 
is counted as our presence and residence there, 
and we find it so set forth in the epistles to the 
Ephesians, Collossians and Philippians. But is it 
not plain that access carries with it the opposite idea 
of separation ; that drawing near to God involves a 
withdrawing from fellowship with an evil world ? 
The fact that Christ is at the right hand of the 
Father, and that we are one with Him in his exalta¬ 
tion, gives us our reckoning-point by which to fix 


*Rom. 8 : 11. 





220 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


our relation to this world. The paradox of Lady 
Powerscourt that “ the Christian is not one who is 
looking up from earth to heaven, but one who is 
looking down from heaven to earth,” can be com¬ 
prehended in this light. If “our citizenship is in 
heaven ” * we are spiritually disfranchised of the 
world, and are bound to confess that “we are 
strangers and pilgrims on the earth.” This last 
saying, however, is only true of believers, the “ par¬ 
takers of the heavenly calling.” When our Lord 
is speaking to the unbelieving Jews he says, “ Ye 
are from beneath , I am from above; ye are of 
this world, I am not of this world.”f But when He 
speaks to His own disciples, to those who have been 
“ born from above,” he says, “ Ye are not of the 
world , but I have chosen you out of the world.” J 
And in like manner when we read that God “ hath 
raised us up together, and made us sit together in 
heavenly places in Christ Jesus,” § the infer¬ 
ence is clear concerning our earthward state. 
To be seated together with Christ, unseats us from 
the throne of earthly ambition, and makes us con¬ 
tent to forego its crowns and prizes and rewards ; 
just as Jesus said after speaking of the kings of the 


* Phil. 3: 20. 


f John 8: 23. 


$ John 15: 19. §Eph. 2:6. 




ACCESS AND SEPARATION. 


221 


Gentiles exercising lordship, “ but ye shall not be 
so.” This is what we mean in saying that access 
implies separation. 

No doubt this truth is especially distasteful to 
this generation — a generation bent, as few have 
been, on reconciling the claims of religion with 
those of pleasure, and thus solving the problem of 
“ making the best of both worlds.” Would that our 
eyes were really open to what is passing! To dis¬ 
suade Christians from going to the theatre would 
be very tame advice in these days, when the thea¬ 
tre with rapid strides is pushing itself into the 
church. To tell the disciples of Jesus to “love 
not the world neither the things that are in the 
world,” would seem a very mild dissuasion and al¬ 
most unkind when the world has come to such 
friendly terms with the church, that it willingly 
lends all its machinery of entertainment and art 
and amusement to make the gospel more attrac¬ 
tive. It is with no spirit of surly ascetism that we 
speak; it is rather with a tearful, grieved and fore¬ 
boding dread as to where this practice of a natural¬ 
ized Christianity and a worldly consecration may 
bring us. At all events the truest remedy is to be 
found in a strenuous and stubborn non-conformity 



222 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


to the world on the part of Christians. With the 
most unshaken conviction, we believe that the 
church can only make headway, in this world, by 
being loyal to her heavenly calling. Towards Rit¬ 
ualism her cry must be “ not a rag of Popery ; ” 
towards Rationalism “ not a vestige of whatsoever 
is not of faith ; ” and towards Secularism “ not a 
shred of the garment spotted by the flesh.” The 
Bride of Christ can only give a true and powerful 
testimony in this world as she is found clothed 
with her own proper vesture even the “ fine linen 
clean and white, which is the righteousness of the 
saints.” 

But this rigid separation from the world must 
be attended with the most persistent, zealous, untir¬ 
ing going into the world, to seek and to save that 
which was lost. For the same Lord who tells us that 
we are not of the world even as He is not of the world, 
makes known to us how the Father sent Him into 
the world, and then adds “ As my Father hath sent 
me, so send I you.” The other corollary of this 
high doctrine — : ah ! who can believe it without 
reserve, or receive it without shrinking — “ Be¬ 
cause ye are not of this world therefore the world 
hatethyou ?” It is just as true as when Christ first 



ACCESS AND SEPARATION. 


223 


uttered it — this promise of the word’s malediction 
which carries the pledge of the Saviour’s benedic¬ 
tion. That we do not see this contrariety mani¬ 
fested, as in the beginning, is not altogether because 
the world’s enmity has been assuaged, but because 
the church’s non-conformity has been tempered 
and subdued. Settle it in your mind, oh ! believer, 
that if you should be privileged to walk with God 
like Enoch, you would have to part company 
with such as have set their affections on the earth ; 
and not content merely to walk apart from you they 
would have many hard speeches to make against 
you ; and if you should be favored to be “ greatly 
beloved ” of the Lord, as Daniel was, your portion 
might be to be greatly hated by those of your gener¬ 
ation. This we say with no morbid greed for perse¬ 
cution, but because it is so written. Persecution 
indeed like everything else which the Lord has 
blessed and sanctified, has been counterfeited by 
his great enemy; and many a man who glories 
in tribulation is really glorying in his own shame, 
his fancied crown of martrydom being only 
a fool’s cap, which signalizes his preeminent self- 
deception. The Ritualist setting up in the church 
his half-heathen ceremonials and complaining of 



224 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


the discipline that sets him aside from his minis¬ 
try ; the Rationalist crucifying the faith of Christ 
with the nails of his unsanctified logic, and then, 
because God’s true servants hold off from him, 
counting it persecution. — What have these to do 
with wearing the crown of Christ’s rejection? 
“ But if ye do well and suffer for it; ” — “if any man 
suffer as a Christian,” — “ if ye suffer for righteous¬ 
ness sake, happy are ye.”* And this is the prom¬ 
ised portion of all such as will live godly in Christ 
Jesus. How many of us have this title and testi¬ 
mony to our consecration ? Certainly, if we are 
faithful, it will never be wholly wanting in “this 
present evil world.” The offence of the cross has 
not ceased ; and one who really lives Christ cruci¬ 
fied will be quite as likely to feel the sharp thrust 
of persecution, as one who preaches Christ crucified. 

There was a minister of Christ, who died in the 
early part of this century, who exerted an extraor¬ 
dinary influence for good upon his generation, es¬ 
pecially in awakening a spirit of self-sacrifice and 
consecration in other ministers. One who knew 
him intimately declares, and italicises the state¬ 
ment that “ by the mere force of evangelical truth 


* i Peter ui; 14, etc. 





ACCESS AND SEPARATION 


225 


and holiness , exhibited during fifty or sixty years , 
and not by great talents and extraordinary powers 
of judgment or particidar attainments in academi¬ 
cal learning , God gave him this wide and blessed 
influence over the age in which he lived.”* And 
yet we know of no one in recent times who had 
such a bitter portion of persecution wrung out to 
him, or who had such exquisite torture inflicted 
upon fine and tender sensibilities as this holy and 
evangelical preacher, Charles Simeon of Cambridge. 
While avoiding severity in his preaching, he poured 
forth from that University pulpit the tenderest and 
most persuasive strains of evangelical truth, that 
could anywhere be heard in that day. Without 
fear, without wavering and without qualification 
he preached the cross and lived the cross. But as 
he passed through the streets, he was hissed and 
hooted ; bricks and stones, accompanied with every 
offensive epithet were hurled at him from college 
windows, and his services in the church were con- 
constantly disturbed by angry rioters. Yet none of 
these things moved him. Hear how his sorrowful 
heart was once solaced in his # overwhelming trials. 


* Bishop Wilson. 





226 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


It is a melting story, told in his old age, and it is 
most instructive in its lessons. He says : * 

“When the early disciples were persecuted and 
brought before kings and governors for Christ’s sake, he 
declared that it should turn to them for a testimony. So 
it will be; the world will mock and trample on you, 
a man will come and slap you on your face. You will 
rub your face and say ‘ This is strange work, I like it 
not sir ’ — ‘ Never mind,’ I say. ‘ This is your evidence; 
it turns to you for a testimony.’ If you were of the 
world the world would love its own ; but now ye are 
not of the world, therefore the world hateth you ! 

Many years ago when I was an object of much con¬ 
tempt and derision in the University, I strolled forth 
one day, buffeted and afflicted, with my little Testament 
in my hand. I prayed earnestly to my God that He 
would comfort me with some cordial from His word, 
and that, on opening the book, I might find some text 
which should sustain me. I thought I would turn to 
the epistles where I should most easily find some pre¬ 
cious promise; but my book was upside down, so, 
without intending it, I opened on the gospels. The 
first text which caught my eye was this, ‘ They found a 
man of Cyrene , Simon by name; him they compelled to 
bear his cross.' You know Simon is the same name 


Memoirs p. 473. 




A CCESS AND SEPARA TION. 227 

as Simeon. What a word of instruction was here — 
what a blessed hint for my encouragement. To have 
the cross laid upon me, that I might bear it after 
Jesus — what a privilege! It was enough. Now I 
could leap and sing for joy, as one whom Jesus was 
honouring with a participation in His sufferings. And 
when I read that , I said, ‘ Lord lay it on me, lay it on 
me; I will gladly bear the cross for Thy sake.’ And I 
henceforth bound persecution as a wreath of glory 
round my brow ! ” 

And yet when did ever one have fellowship with 
Christ’s sufferings, without also having part, even 
here, in his joy ? While the thorns of persecution 
were sorely wounding him, Simeon was able like 
his Master to see of the travail of his soul and be 
satisfied. For it was during these years of trial, 
that God gave him Henry Martyn, among others, 
as the fruit of his toil and patient endurance. 
Henry Martyn! ah! how his much sorrowing 
heart rested in its love when it turned to this de¬ 
voted missionary! Is there anywhere to be found 
a more exquisite instance of the — we will not say 
romance — but pathos of Christian affection, than 
in that story of his reception of the portrait of 
his beloved Henry, whose living face he was to 



228 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


see no more ? This is his description of the scene : 
“ I had, after it was opened at the India House, 
gone to see the picture, and notwithstanding all 
that had been said respecting it to prepare my 
mind, I was so overpowered by the sight, that I 
could not bear to look upon it, but turned away 
and went to a distance, covering my face, and, in 
spite of every effort to the contrary, crying aloud 

with anguish. E-was with me ; and all the 

bystanders said to her, That I suppose is his 
father.” His father , indeed, in a sense that none 
of them knew; and this was the son whom he had 
“ begotten in his bonds.” Blessed are they who, 
like Simeon are content to forego wife and children 
and houses and lands for Christ’s sake, that they 
may look upon spiritual children and say, “ for in 
Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gos¬ 
pel.” 

We insist that the words of our Lord hold true 
in all ages of the church ; “ Because ye are not of 
the world, therefore the world hateth you.” The 
power of persecution changes indeed with each 
generation. In the barbarous age, it finds express¬ 
ion in the stake and thumbscrew; in the refined 





ACCESS AND SEPARATION. 


229 


and cultivated age it manifests itself in the form of 
envenomed speech, or silent and sullen antipathy. 
But whatever the form, the fact will be inevitable. 
The measure of our separation from the world, 
must always be the measure of the world’s intoler¬ 
ance. “ The age of persecution past! ” Possibly, 
if the age of worldly conformity is here. If the 
hem of the believer’s garment gets unravelled by 
easy compliance, it will soon be woven up with 
that of the worldling, and then there will be no an¬ 
tagonism. It is the rending of garments that un¬ 
covers deformities ; drawing into closer union with 
Christ, results in withdrawing from the things in 
which the flesh delights, and so in judging our¬ 
selves, we condemn others. Indeed every advance 
in holiness casts a reflection on prevailing worldli¬ 
ness. Hence the enmity. “ And wherefore slew 
he him ? Because his own works were evil, and 
his brother s righteous .” 

We urge none to bid for persecution ; but with 
the heart of Christ, we beseech Christians to strive 
for unworldliness of life. “The Cross of Christ 
condemns me to be a saint,” wrote one. Would 
that we all believed it! Christ died that we might 
live, but not unto ourselves; He suffered that He 



230 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


might reconcile us unto God, — but not unto this 
present evil world. 

Our power is in our separateness from the world, 
not in our affiliation with it. “ Why are so few, 
from the world, joining the church ? ” was asked 
the other day. “ Because so many in the church 
are joining the world,” it was answered. Explana¬ 
tion enough ! Nothing is gained by alliance with 
unconverted men; everything depends upon our 
close communion with our risen Lord. Consecra¬ 
tion to Christ must precede contact with men, or 
we shall be drawn away from Him instead of 
drawing men to Him. The Holy Ghost said, 
“Separate me Barnabas and Saul; ” and the Spirit 
said to Philip, “Go near join thyself to this 
chariot.” The first command precedes the other, 
in the divine order. God would have us set 
apart to Him, in order that we may with safety 
and strength, go forth to bless others. 

O blessed two-fold life to which He has called 
us ! In heaven and yet on earth ; seated with Him 
in the heavenlies, and sitting down with publicans 
and sinners to tell them of Him who died to save 
them! We are as He was, who while His feet 
were standing on the earth, sore and weary from 



ACCESS AND SEPARATION. 


231 


their search after the lost, and hastening on to be 
nailed to the cross for our redemption, yet spoke 
of himself as the “ Son of man who is in heaven 
Let us strive to be one with Him alike in His 
exaltation and in his humiliation. And to this 
end, let us heed that double exhortation given 
us in Scripture, “ Let us draw near . . having 
boldness to enter into the Holiest by the blood of 
Jesus,” and “ Let us go forth therefore unto Him 
without the camp bearing His reproach.” 




X. 


IDEAL AND ATTAINMENT. 


“ Human wisdom says, ‘disengage yourself by degrees 
from the bonds of sin; learn gradually to love God and 
live for Him.’ But in this way we never break radically 
with sin, and give ourselves wholly to God. We re¬ 
main in the dull, troubled atmosphere of our own nature, 
and never attain to the contemplation of the full light of 
the Divine holiness. Faith, on the contrary, raises us, as 
it were at a bound, into the regal position which Jesus 
Christ now holds, and which in him is really ours. 
From thence we behold sin cast under our feet; we 
taste the life of God as our true essential being in Jesus 
Christ. Reason says, ‘ Become holy in order to be holy.’ 
Faith says ‘You are holy: therefore become so. You 
are holy in Christ; become so in your own person.’ 
This is perhaps the most paradoxical feature of pure 
evangelical doctrine. He who disowns it, or puts it 
from him will never cross the threshold of Christian 
sanctification. We do not get rid of sin by little and 
little, we break with it with that total breaking which 
was consummated by Christ upon the cross. We do not 
ascend one by one the steps of the throne: we spring 
upon it and seat ourselves there with Christ, by the act 
of faith which incorporates us in Him. Then from the 
height of that position, holy in its essential nature, we 
reign victoriously over self, the world, Satan and all the 
powers of evil.”— Godet. 


X. 


IDEAL AND ATTAINMENT. 

CONCLUSION. 

W HAT we have thus set forth from Scrip¬ 
ture and experience, we would wish to 
see made real in Christian life. But we are sen¬ 
sible that to live a truth is far more difficult than 
to expound it. And yet it is to be borne in mind 
that doctrine is not the measure of experience, 
but its mould. For example, instead of aiming at 
self-crucifixion as the goal of our endeavor, we 
J start from it as our point of departure. “ I have 
been crucified with Christfi* writes Paul. Here is 
the doctrinal or judicial fact on which he rests 
and from which he proceeds. And how constantly 
is he reiterating it as a truth applying to all 
believers without distinction. “Because we thus 
judge that one died for all, therefore all died.” f 


* Gal. 2: 20; r. v. 


t 2 Cor. 5: 15; R. V. 



236 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE . 


And what is his conclusion from this solemn judi¬ 
cial fact ? This, that we are to strive with all 
diligence to make it a realized and experimental 
fact. “For ye died, .... morti fy therefore your 
"S members which are upon the earth."* That is to 
say; we are to make that true in ourselves which 
is already true for us in Christ, and so turn a fact 
of doctrine into a fact of attainment. And this 
principle applies to resurrection equally. “ Raised 
together with Christ ,” we are to “ seek those things 
that are above " ; f that is, to/live the resurrection 
life in Himi instead of holding to the fallen life in 
Adam. 

Now it is already true that/the Holy Ghost has 
been given ; therefore we are to receive him in 
his indwelling fullness and power.y It is true that 
all believers are sanctified, for Paul addresses the 
Corinthian church in its entirety as “ those that 
are sanctified in Christ Jesus;" therefore are we 
to [seek with all diligence io be sanctified in our¬ 
selves, that our whole soul, body and spirit may be 
presented blameless before the Lord at his comingy 
Here, readers, is what we mean by the “two-fold 
I life.” It is Christ’s work for us, on the cross, on 


Col. 3: 3; R. V. 


t CoL 3:1. 




IDEAL AND ATTAINMENT. 


23 7 


the throne, and in the clouds, on the one hand ; 
and Christ’s work in us, by his Spirit, by his Word, 
and by his ordinances on the other. And/the high 
endeavor, the life-long task which is set before us 
in the Scriptures, is that of conforming our inward 
experience to our outward standard,J or in the 
expressive words of Paul, “ of apprehending that 
for which we are also apprehended of Christ 
Jesus.” With us, Christian attainment is not a 
tentative, uncertain thing. God does not say to 
each one of us, “ Be what you can be ; and since 
each man is the architect of his own fortune, reach 
forth to the end for which you are best fitted.” 
Nay ; God never talks to us, as men do, about 
being the architects of our own fortunes ; but he 
holds up before us that/archetype of our spiritual 
fortune which he has fashioned for usyand declares 
that this must so certainly be wrought out in us 
that he counts it done already, saying, “Forwhom 
he did foreknow he also did predestinate to be 
conformed to the image of his Son. Moreover 
whom he did predestinate them he also called; 
and whom he called them he also justified ; and 
whom he justified them he also glorified.”* 


* Rom. 8: 30. 






238 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


It should be an occasion of sincere gratitude, 
we believe, that the great evangelistic movement 
now going on is emphasizing so strongly the doc- 
and assurance rest on the 



external word of Christ. 


Inquirers are told to look for the evidence of their 
salvation to what the Redeemer has done for them 
on his Cross, and to what he has said to them in 
his Testament, and not to what they can discover 
going on within their hearts. This is the true 
doctrine of justification by faith which it was the 
work of the Reformation to revive. Faith never 
draws attention to itself, but points ever to the 
finished work of Christ. “Therefore being justi¬ 
fied by faith/’ — But the “ therefore ” carries the 
thought back to the preceding verse, and throws 
the whole weight of our confidence on the accom¬ 
plished fact therein stated ; * “ Who was delivered 
for our offences and raised again for our justifica- 


The Wesleyan revival of a hundred years ago, 
laid weighty emphasis on the doctrine of the in- 


* “ Look to the wounds of Christ, brother Martin, look to the wounds of 


j Christ, and there you will see how God feels toward you.” — Staupitz to 


\ Luther. 




IDEAL AND A TTAINMENT. 


239 


ward witness. This was necessary and inevitable 
in a movement which reacted so strongly from the 
barren Externalism then prevailing in the church. 

But we have the impression that in the course of 
time this emphasis became excessive and oppress- 
*/ ive, and tended to put upon anxious souls a burden 
greater than they could bear. How many of us 
remember in our own conversion, the persistency 
with which our gaze was directed within, and how 
painfully we were set to watch our spiritual exer- ^ 
cises to find the evidences of our acceptance. 

But now the pendulum has swung quite to the 
opposite extreme, and our most effective revival 
preachers disparage all trust in frames and feelings, 
telling sinners to look to Christ on the Cross, 

\ instead of searching for Christ in the heart; to 
receive the testimony of the Word to their accept¬ 
ance, when they have believed, instead of search¬ 
ing for the testimony of consciousness. This we 
strongly believe to be the true gospel. And there 
is so much the more need of giving the other 
phase of doctrine its true place, in order to pre¬ 
serve the balance of truth. We should urge the 
seeking of the witness of the Spirit, not as the / 
ground of faith, but as the fruit of faith. Paul 



240 


’ THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


has given us the two-fold life in a single paragraph 
in the Epistle to the Galatians — “For ye are all 
sons of God by faith in Christ Jesus!' “And be¬ 
cause ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit 
of his Soninto your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.”* 

It seems to us that the old Puritan writers held 
together these two sides of truth, and preserved 
their balance to a remarkable degree. They ex¬ 
pounded most clearly the objective work of Christ, 
and they also unfolded his subjective work, with a 
minuteness, and a depth of insight quite beyond 
anything which we witness in our day. And they 
wrote thus clearly, because they had apprehended 
these things by a profound interior experience. 
What tide-marks do the diaries and meditations, 
which these good men left, furnish of the heights 
to which the Spirit’s floods rose in their souls ! 
We have a great lesson to learn of them concern¬ 
ing the culture of the inner life. 

Reading the high discourse of John Howe on 
“The Blessedness of the Righteous,” “Delighting 
in God,” and “The Redeemer’s Tears,” we in¬ 
stinctively inquire for the spiritual autobiography 
of this man who writes so divinely. We are dis- 


* Gal. 3: 26; 4:6. 





IDEAL A AD A TTA IA T MEA r T. 


24I 


appointed, however, to find that he ordered all his 
journals burned,before his death, and that in spite 
of the remonstrance of friends these were com¬ 
mitted to the flames. But he has more than once 
expressed his sense of the importance of striving 
for the highest communion and(^delight in God 
which the soul may attain through the Holy Ghost. 
And there is one glimpse into his inner experience 
which shows how clearly he apprehended the two¬ 
fold life. On the blank page of his Bible, penned 
in Latin, we find this record : — 

“Dec. 26th, 1689. 

“After that I had long, seriously, and repeatedly 
thought with myself, that besides a full and undoubted 
assejit to the objects of faith, a vivifying, savory taste and 
relish of them was also necessary, that with stronger force 
and more powerful energy they might penetrate into the 
most inward centre of my heart, and there being most 
deeply fixed and rooted, govern my life; and that there 
could be no other sure ground whereon to conclude 
and pass a sound judgment, on my good estate God- 
ward ; and after I had in my course of preaching been 
largely insisting on I Cor. i: 12. For our rejoicing is 
this, the testimony of our conscience, etc.; this very 
morning I awoke out of a most ravishing and delight- 





242 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


ful dream, when a wonderful and copious stream of 
celestial rays, from the lofty throne of the Divine * 
Majesty, did seem to dart into my open and expanded 
breast. I have often since w r ith great complacency 
reflected on that very signal pledge of special Divine 
favor, vouchsafed to me on that noted memorable day; 
and have with repeated fresh pleasure tasted the de¬ 
lights thereof. But what of the same kind I sensibly 
felt, through the admirable bounty of my God, and the 
most pleasant comforting influences of the Holy Spirit, 
on Oct. 22, 1704,* far surpassed the most expressive 
words my thoughts can suggest. I then experienced 
an inexpressibly pleasant melting of heart, tears gush¬ 
ing out of mine eyes, for joy that God should shed 
abroad his love abundantly through the hearts of men, 
and that for this very purpose mine own should be so 
signally possessed of and by his blessed Spirit. Rom. 



Rightly does this lofty thinker 


the divine life within, penetrating to the most 


* This reference is probably to an experience thus described by his biogra¬ 


pher “ It was observed, and is I believe to this day remembered by some of his 
flock, that in his last illness, and when he had been declining for some time, he 
was once in a most affecting, melting heavenly frame at the communion, and car¬ 
ried out into such a ravishing and transporting celebration of the love of Christ, 
that both he himself and they who communicated with him were apprehensive he 
would have expired in that very service.” 




IDEAL AND A TTAINMENT. 


243 


inward centre, and being deeply fixed and rooted 
there, which determines our character^/' The out¬ 
ward look of faith saves us; the inward life of 
faith sanctifies us. The human face takes its 
expression from the soul within, that inner sculp¬ 
tor who fashions our features by the touch of 
thought and feeling and desire. No countenance 
can copy the lines of beauty or grace from another; 
they must be shaped from within. And so it is 
“the law of the Spirit of Life” operating within 
us that determines our character and example, not 
any external imitation. The apostle says, indeed, 
that “ we all with open face beholding as in a glass 
the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same 
image from glory to glory.” But this transforma¬ 
tion is not effected by outward conformity, but 
through an inner moulding. For he adds, “ even 
by the Spirit of the LordS Can we, then, attach 
too much importance to the indwelling and in¬ 
working of the Comforter ? 

And this leads us to recur again to the question 
of the enduement and inhabiting of the Holy 
Spirit. Mark how all power, success, knowledge 
and conviction are made in the Scriptures to de¬ 
pend on this. Nothing of eloquence or learning 




244 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


is mentioned in the descriptions of primitive 
preaching. But the record is that they “preached 
the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down 
from heaven.”* No powerful array of logic is 
recommended for convincing an unbelieving world 
of the deity of Christ. On the contrary, we are 
admonished that “no man can say that Jesus is 
Lord hut by the Holy Ghost.” \ No fixed and 
accredited prayers are provided for the ignorant 
and stammering; but the declaration is explicit 
that “ we know not what we should pray for as we 
ought, but the Spirit himself maketh intercession 
for us with groanings which cannot he uttered.” % 

No intimation is given that Christians are to bor¬ 
row the world’s pleasures for their comfort and 
delectation in their earthly pilgrimage; but the 
picture of their state is that of believers “ walking J 
in the comfort of the Holy Ghost.” § If so much is 
made to depend on the indwelling Spirit, how dili¬ 
gently we need to seek the largest measure and 
the fullest communication of His power, which are 
possible for us. 

We do not insist that it is God’s will that all 
shall have the same overpowering baptism of the 


* x Pet. i: i2. 


t i Cor. 12: 3. 


I Rom. 8: 26. § Acts 9: 31. 




IDEAL AND ATTAINMENT. 


245 


Spirit which Finney and Brainerd Taylor had ; or 
be visited with such seraphic delights as Edwards 
and Howe and Flavel enjoyed, or be favored with 
such times of refreshing as were vouchsafed to 
Brainerd and Christmas Evans. But the anoint¬ 
ing of the Spirit to fit us for the highest service 
and success — this seems to be something for 
which all may rightly seek. And how may it be 
obtained ? for this is the question we are called to 
answer in this chapter. 

1. By pray er, continued, definite and persever¬ 
ing, we answer first of all. As we become deeply 
instructed in this matter, we shall learn to pray 
less about the details of duty, and more about the 
fullness of power. The manufacturer is chiefly 
anxious to secure an ample head of water for his 
mills ; and this being found, he knows that his ten 
thousand spindles will keep in motion without 
particular attention to each one. It is in like 
manner the sources of our power that we should 
be most solicitous about, and not its results. If 
by real prayer we have gained access to God and 
obtained the communication of the Spirit, every 
service will be quickened, every duty will be in¬ 
spired, every infirmity will be helped. Let us 



246 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE . 


pray therefore with all perseverance for the Holy 
Spirit, watching thereunto, until through faith and 
patience we inherit the promise. We have said 
that our Master s sealing was the pattern for ours. 
And have we observed how it came to him while 
in intercession to his Father? “Jesus also hav¬ 
ing been baptized and praying , the heaven was 
opened and the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily 
form as a dove upon him,”* — suggesting that 
even the Son of God did not receive this gift with¬ 
out asking for it. Contin ue therefore in supplica¬ 
tion, O believer, for this greatest of blessings. 
All gifts are wrapped up in the gift of the Spirit, 
all powers are included in the power of the Holy 
^Ghost. Give not over asking till you are answer¬ 
ed, and the Lord shall once more say to you, 
“ Receive ye the Holy Ghost.” 

2. By a diligent study of the Holy Scriptures 
we shall most assuredly be in the way of attaining 
this blessing. “ The Spirit of God rides most tri¬ 
umphantly in his own chariot ,” f says a worthy 
Puritan. And we know from repeated declara¬ 
tions that the word of God is the vehicle of the 
Spirit. “ Sanctify them through thy truth,” prays 


* Luke 3: 22; R. V. 


t Thomas Manton, 1620-1677. 





IDEAL AND A TTAINMENT. 


247 


Jesus ; “ thy Word is truth.” If we mount up to 
God in the chariot of faith and intercession, we 
may look for Him to come down to us in the 
chariot of truth. Let us therefore search the 
Scriptures diligently t'o discover what treasures of 
the Spirit are there hidden for us. 

3. By associat ion with those servants of God 
who have most of the Spirit’s life in their souls, 
we may find this grace. The instances in the Acts 
of the Apostles of believers sent to communi¬ 
cate the Spirit to those who had him .not are sug¬ 
gestive. Without arguing that there are those 
who can bestow this gift in the same way to-day, 
the method is significant of God’s general order. 
He has put this treasure into earthen vessels that 
it may the more readily be poured into others of 
the same kind. And often these vessels are very 
humble and little esteemed among men ; — hidden 
Christians who are intimate with God; lowly 
women of whom the world is not worthy ; follow¬ 
ers with some despised sect, or dwellers in some 
illustrious obscurity — these are they who have 
often proved God’s very chiefest instruments for 
leading Christians into the fuller power and larger 
light of the Spirit. 




248 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


It is more than interesting, it is altogether hum¬ 
bling and subduing, to trace instances of this sort. 
There is John Tauler, the splendid preacher and 
theologian, at fifty years of age quite without a 
peer among his contemporaries. What higher 
accomplishments, what added power does he need? 
But a mysterious stranger comes to Strasburg in 
1340 — Nicolas of Basle, a leader in the sect of 
“ Friends of God.” He gets the ear of this man 
who has the ear of all the people, and shows him 
that it is not by might of learning or splendor of 
eloquence, but by God’s Spirit, that he is to fulfil 
his ministry. And the admired preacher at length 
leaves his pulpit for two whole years, to seek in 
retirement that spiritual enduement to which he 
had hitherto been a stranger. And how he 
preached when he emerged from his solitude and 
again ascended the pulpit! What searching in¬ 
tensity of speech, what profound humility, what 
Christ-like compassion for the sins and sorrows of 
his people ; what apostolic self-denial ! Living in 
an age which has been named “ an epoch of tears, 
of blood, of unmeasured calamity,” he was such a 
prophet and apostle of God as few succeeding 
ages have known. 



IDEAL AND ATTAINMENT. 


249 


There is Francis Xavier, in the sixteenth cen¬ 
tury. He has early risen into brilliant reputation; 
and crowds are thronging his lectures day by day. 
Who has achieved success if he has not ? But 
in the throng of his hearers appears the sombre 
figure of Ignatius Loyola. Disliked, ridiculed, 
repulsed at first, he does not leave the object of 
his solicitude ; but after each splendid success he 
plies him with the question, “ What shall it profit 
a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own 
soul ? ” At last, under this searching inquisition, 
Xavier is driven into retirement and his ambitious 
thoughts are remanded to the cloister of his peni¬ 
tent heart, there to be trained into obedience to the 
cross of Christ. When he comes forth he is girded 
for service. Oh that he had known the true gos¬ 
pel of the grace of God — this missionary of une¬ 
qualled fortitude, this undaunted cross-bearer, who 
became obedient unto death for his Master s sake! 
But for becoming what he was he owed the first 
impulse to that stern-visaged Spaniard. These are 
but illustrations, which might be greatly multi¬ 
plied, of the power of single men in leading their 
fellows to a higher life. The lesson is a very prac¬ 
tical and serious one. It may be that through 



250 


"HE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


some very lowly instrument shall come to us the 
greatest blessing of our life. “ The secret of the 
Lord is with them that fear him ”; and on this 
principle it often happens that they are best in¬ 
structed in the things of God who are least in¬ 
structed in the things of men, and that the high¬ 
est divine wisdom is found with those of lowliest 
human station. See that ye despise not one of 
these little ones, for they may have been commis¬ 
sioned of the Lord to bear to you one of his most 
precious secrets. 

We select an example which is found near home, 
and which belongs to a very practical and power¬ 
ful ministry. No one at all acquainted with our 
eminent American Evangelist can question his 
superior natural endowments ; his intense sympa¬ 
thy, his sturdy Saxon common sense, and his great 
executive talent. But, on the other hand, no one 
acquainted with his work can believe that these 
qualities alone can account for his remarkable 
success. Mr. Moody believes intensely in the 
enduement of the Holy Spirit as the source of 
the preacher’s power ; and those who have follow¬ 
ed him in his extraordinary work will be sure that 
he has known something of this in his own experi- 



IDEAL AND ATTAINMENT. 


251 


ence. From an address given recently in Glasgow 
we get a glimpse of his spiritual history, which 
accords remarkably with what we have just been 
saying. We give it in his own words, as found in 
a published report of his sermons : — 

“ I can myself go back almost twelve years and re¬ 
member two holy women who used to come to my meet¬ 
ings. It was delightful to see them there, for when I 
began to preach I could tell by the expression of their 
faces they were praying for me. At the close of the 
Sabbath evening services they would say to me, ‘We 
have been praying for you.’ I said, ‘Why don’t you 
pray for the people ? ’ They answered ‘ You need 
power.’ ‘I need power,’ I said to myself; ‘why, I 
thought I had power.’ I had a large Sabbath school, 
and the largest congregation in Chicago. There were 
some conversions at the time, and I was in a sense sat¬ 
isfied. But right along these two godly women kept 
praying for me, and their earnest talk about ‘the 
anointing for special service ’ set me thinking. I asked 
them to come and talk with me, and we got down on 
our knees. They poured out their hearts, that I might 
receive the anointing of the Holy Ghost. (And there 
came a great hunger into my soul. y I knew not what it 
was. I began to cry as never tefore. The hunger 
increased. I really felt that I did not want to live any 



252 


THE TWO -FOLD LIFE . 


longer if I could not have this power for service. I 
kept on crying all the time that God would fill me with 
his Spirit. Well, one day, in the city of New York — 
oh what a day! I cannot describe it; I seldom refer 
to it; it is almost too sacred an experience to name. 
Paul had an experience of which he never spoke for 
fourteen years. I can only say, God revealed himself 
to me, and I had such an experience of his love that I 
had to ask him to stay his hand. 

“ I went to preaching again. The sermons were not 
different; I did not present any new truths, and yet 
hundreds were converted. I would not be placed back 
where I was before that blessed experience if you would 
give me all Glasgow. It is a sad day when the convert 
goes into the church and that is the last you hear of him. 

If however you want this power for some selfish end, 
as, for example, to gratify your ambition, you will not 
get it. ‘No flesh says God shall glory in my pres¬ 
ence.’ May he empty us of self and fill us with his 
presence.” 

This is a story often repeated in the history of 
God’s church — humble instruments used to pre¬ 
pare the mightiest instruments for their work. 
How obscure a figure is Ananias in comparison J 
with Paul! And yet he is the one commissioned 
to communicate the Spirit to this chief apostle, 



IDEAL AND ATTAINMENT. 


253 


that this “ chosen vessel ” who is to bear Christ’s 
name to the Gentiles may first “be filled with the 
Holy Ghost.” How slight the mention made in 
^ Scripture of Aquila and Priscilla ! But these are 
they who took Apollos, that “ eloquent man and 
mighty in the Scriptures,” and “expounded unto 
him the way of the Lord more perfectly.” And 
coming down to later times who was Peter Boehler ? 
A name almost unknown to the world, it is replied ; 
but he was the man whom God used to prepare 
John Wesley for his prodigious work. This is not 
according to human wisdom indeed ; but have we 
never read in Scripture that “those members of 
the body which seem to be more feeble are neces¬ 
sary ” ? The church in all ages has had her lamp¬ 
lighters, whose calling it has been to kindle with 
Pentecostal fire those who were ordained to shine 
illustriously, holding forth the word of life. They 
have lighted these candles of the Lord, and then 
have themselves stepped back into obscurity and 
been forgotten by their generation.* But their 


* It would be most interesting to trace this principle in its application to obscure 
sects, in their mission of illuminating and quickening the great church of God — 
Friends of God, Poor men of Lyons, Moravians, Quakers, Mystics, Brethren, 
etc. These sects, though little among the tribes of Judah, building no splendid 
churches, fashioning no stately rituals, have yet powerfully influenced the spiritual 






254 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


reward will be great of our Father which is in 
heaven, and they should be esteemed very highly 
by us for their work’s sake. 

And how may those fruits of the Spirit on 
which we have dwelt — communion, peace, holi¬ 
ness and power — be acquired ? We shall answer 
again : not so much by seeking them directly and 
for themselves, as by seeking that Holy Spirit in 
whom they are all contained, and from whose in¬ 
dwelling fullness they are certain to result. 

The joy of communion, for example, will be 
quite certain to elude us, if we are too intent on 
obtaining it for itself. It will come to us, if at all, 
as the outcome of service rather than as the in¬ 
come of meditation. Tauler gives the true coun¬ 
sel, and such as will apply to every age and to 
every Christian — “ When you are plunged in 
interior meditation, and God calls you to go forth 
and preach, or to discharge to some sick person a 

life of the generations to which they have belonged. We may mention especially 
the “ United Brethren,” and their influence in bringing the light to such eminent 
servants of God as Wesley and Tholuck and Hengstenberg; we may mention 
also the “ Brethren ” of our day-, who while greatly perplexing the churches by 
their disorganizing theories of ecclesiastical order, have yet been w'onderfufly used 
of God in re-lighting that torch of primitive Christianity, the Hope of Christ’s 
Personal and Premillenial Advent, and reviving clear and simple views of the 
doctrine of justification by Christ’s work for us. 




IDEAL AND ATTAINMENT. 


255 


duty of charity, do it promptly and with joy ; and 
the presence of God will be more sensible to you 
J than as if you remain concentrated upon self.” 
Exercise brings the warmth and glow of health, 
and he will have the truest spiritual health who 
most exercises himself unto godliness. And so 
with the soul’s happy rest in the Lord amid trials 
and perturbations. “ And the peace of God that 
passeth all understanding shall keep your hearts 
and minds." Ah ! blessed promise ; we have not 
to keep the peace ; God’s peace keeps us. The 
sick man is struggling to retain his breath and 
keep his hold upon the vital air; but the well man 
lets the air keep him ; it surrounds and encom¬ 
passes and maintains him, and he rests in it with¬ 
out a thought of trying to keep it. Thus oh soul 
rest in God’s peace until the God of peace shall 
sanctify you wholly. And even holiness may not 
be sought so much directly as by the worship and 
service of a holy God. Looking to Jesus shows 
us our sins, but it also assimilates us to his perfec¬ 
tion. Let us look at what He is then. Contem¬ 
plating our holiness for sanctification is as fatal an 
error as gazing on our sins for justification. He 
that humbles himself shall be exalted. It is when 



256 


THE TIVO-FOLD LIFE. 


John the Baptist is saying, “ He must increase but 
I must decrease,” that his Lord is saying, “ Among 
them that are born of woman there hath not arisen 
a greater than John the Baptist.” God’s estimate 
of our holiness will be according to our estimate 
of our sin and unworthiness. And holiness has no 
value except as measured by God’s rule. 

And after all that we have said, we must once 
more enforce the caution that none make these 
inner experiences, which we have detailed, their 
model. God has predestined us “ to be conformed 
to the image of His Son,” not to the experience of 
our brethren. That image is alone unchangable 
amid all human mutations. Our spiritual state lies 
often in extremes; now the mount of transfigura¬ 
tion and the vision of the Lord in glory; and next 
the valley of suffering with the lunatic’s cry, and 
the Master’s rebuke, “ Oh faithless and perverse 
generation!” From highest exaltation to deepest 
spiritual depression is the frequent history of God’s 
servants. Therefore let us fasten to no human 
model, but rather hold our eyes ever upon Him 
“ who is the image of the invisible God.” An affec¬ 
tionate disciple of Charles Simeon has recorded 
how he learned this lesson. Once Simeon was 



IDEAL AND A TTAINMENT. 


25 7 


found “ so absorbed in the contemplation of the 
Son of God and so overpowered with a display of 
His mercy to his soul, that, full of the animating 
theme, he was incapable of pronouncing a single 
word, only, after an internal breaking forth with 
accents of “ Glory ! glory ! glory ! ” The young 
disciple said to himself at once “ I have known 
nothing of such fervors as this; and what right 
have I to believe that I am a Christian, or that I 
love the Lord at all ? ” He almost shrank from 
going to his accustomed meeting with his spirit¬ 
ual teacher, so unworthy did he feel. He went 
however; and to his surprise found Simeon 
so bowed in contrition and humiliation that he 
could only cry out, “My leanness, my lean- 
. ness ! ” and with smiting of his breast utter the pub¬ 
licans prayer. “ Now I perceived ” says the disci¬ 
ple “that God dispenses His favors when and how 
He pleases ; that He suits His dispensations to our 
several states and wants, and that the safest 
method we can take is to be sober and vigilant 
and to watch unto prayer.” Yes, verily ! “ These 
wait all upon thee, that thou mayest give them 
their meat in due season He who is our spotless 
offering and exemplar is also our holy food; and 



258 


THE TWO-FOLD LIFE. 


He imparts himself to us when He will and how 
He will. But this much we know that “ they that 
seek the Lord shall not want any good thing.” 
Recur again to the scene of Christ’s sealing, and 
ponder the lesson which it teaches., “ Labor not 
for the meat which perisheth,” He says, “but for 
that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, 
which the Son of man shall give unto you, for Him 
hath God the Father sealed” When the lamb was 
brought forward for sacrifice in the Jewish worship, 
it must be certified to be without spot before it 
could be offered ; therefore the priest was requir¬ 
ed to examine it and, if he found it without blemish, 
to seal it with the temple seal. On the banks of 
the Jordan, God’s Lamb was sealed with the signet 
of the Father and certified by the Holy Ghost. 
Now, John the Baptist looking on Him who was to 
be lifted on the cross could say, “ Behold the 
Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the 
world:” and afterwards that other John looking 
up to the Father’s right hand could say, “The 
Lamb in the midst of the throne shall feed them.” 
The spotless sacrifice of God, and the holy food of 
God ! On the one our assurance of justification 
can rest forever, because God’s righteousness 



IDEAL AND ATTAINMENT. 


259 


there rests forever: in the other our spiritual hun¬ 
ger can find constant satisfaction, because God’s 
holiness there finds constant satisfaction. In the 
Lamb on Calvery who “offered himself without 
spot to God,” we have Christ’s all-sufficient work 
for us: from the Lamb in glory giving his flesh 
“for the life of the world,” we have his all-sufficient 
work in us. Over our Redeemer’s work for us we 
see it written, “ It is finished; ” concerning His 
work in us we find it written, “ Being confident of 
this very thing, that He which hath begun a good 
work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus 
Christ.” 













































































































































































































































































































































l 


ld S '22 

4 










M w U- •• 

. 























































♦ 















































































































































































































I* 































